


Dirty Mirror

by mvllorylvngdon



Category: American Horror Story, House of Cards, Millory - Fandom
Genre: Bear with me please?, F/M, Freeform, Prison AU, Prison!Duncan, Psychiatrist!Mallory, Shrink x Patient, Some (unintended) Harley Quinn x The Joker vibes, Stalking, Wow; these tags are so endearing uWu!!, alternative universe, dubcon, explicit - Freeform, plot heavy, stalker au, unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2020-07-10 13:45:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 88,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19906678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mvllorylvngdon/pseuds/mvllorylvngdon
Summary: When twenty-nine-year-old, fresh-out-of-residencies psychiatrist Mallory Howell started working at the Airway Heights Correction Center with the urge of leaving her past behind, the last thing she had imagined was she would end up treating Duncan Shepherd himself—a devious businessman in disgrace—for his depression after one year in captivity. She is soon to learn that underestimating him was one of her greatest mistakes, falling second only to allowing herself to become his object of desire. An AHS and House of Cards cross-over, Mallory x Duncan. Reader discretion advised.





	1. Foreword

Oscar Wilde once said, that to depict the spectator rather than the artist was the real aim of art. In the way it was written, a young inexperienced soul would find it as outrageous as they would find it cathartic; that was my case, at least. I won't say my views and beliefs haven't been transferred into my writing, from my themes to my prose, after all, it's my writing what I feel will succeed me in this world. But I've held onto each of those words dearly, and I've waited for the right moment to put that ideology in practice. Cue that right moment.

What is a writer, really, except for the medium through which we depict humanity and all of its changes? What is writer, really, aside from the eyes, the ears, the mouth of everything present yet impalpable? I dare say, to me, writers are those who act with utmost honesty through the use of farces. We depict not only what we do and feel, but what we don't and won't, what we could and would. What is a fantasy to some men is a reality to others, and our every desire takes the shape and name of people who might not even exist, at the incapacity of putting ourselves in that very position. 

Clearly, some narratives are chosen over the others when the writer in question is not very fond of them for one out of two reasons: they do not relate to it at all, or they relate too much. It's about as hard to try and write about something we've never lived or experienced, as it is to write things we know all too well but we're ashamed to say. I wanted to go somewhere in between, I wanted to speak of things I knew of, but I also wanted to tread down that shadowy place. It was not—exactly—the story I would have written or the one I would have chosen, but I suppose that in a way the story chose me. It ran me over, even, with a strength and an appeal that startled me, as much as it scared me. Because the pastel, the dreamy, and the fairytalesque are what I do best, because I rather find old words to use to refer to the stars than to find ugly patterns in the cracks in the paint of the ceiling. 

However, both feelings are ever-present in my life—in all of our lives, in fact—and if we pick carefully and we look closely we can find a way to string the words together and make something real out of a face or even a place we never thought of touching. The idea of bringing life to a story meant, to me. more than giving it a soul and a mind, most things living have roots and all things living have veins. I had to gather up the strengths to comprehend I didn't have to fear running my fingers up and down its ribcage, feel its heart beating in my hand.

And this is how I find myself here, growing recklessly fond of truly irremediable people. I mean no harm nor do I desire to be the wicked influence, but I hope—I really do—that by the end of this fable of mine you understand just why I do it, and maybe even grow fond of them, too. By all means, this is a chaotic trip down a very rocky road, and I'm seated in the middle of the backseat with no seatbelt on. 

Love, as I know it, is a deeply flawed thing.

At times I believe nothing with such terrible repercussions should have such a power over us, yet it does. It comes in countless shapes and forms, yet lust, romance, and idyl always seem to be involved in the greatest tragedies in our history. Love, God, we're so obsessed with it! With feeling it, being a witness of it, but love is nothing more than the fraternal twin of possession; and as twins, they are often mistaken for one another. 

When I think of this place, these people, I try to refrain from doubting their judgment and stand by the curb like a casual onlooker. I'm as much of a reader to this story as you are, and what they decide to do—for once—won't be the product of my silly cravings, it'll be the voices of many others and the voices of themselves speaking through me, using this as a canvas to paint their own wicked picture. I ask of you, however, not to take at heart what you would usually conceive as inconceivable, see it as an experiment; that's what I do. When you're done, when you're finished, you will go out into the world once again and they'll continue to be trapped within these words, just waiting. Life wouldn't have changed too much, but you would have sated your curiosity.

When you think of this, see it not as a story of love, but a story of possession. A story about how a subtly pinch of delusion can cause you to commit atrocities, and just how far we're all willing to go not to love, but to possess. 

As it turns out, we're obsessed with possession, also. I think that would make things much clearer than I thought them to be.


	2. Disclaimer

Hello, loves! I thought this was timely, and a necessary, portion of the fic to add aside from the fancy-worded foreword. When we came up with this concept on Discord, it was mostly a spitballing session on crack, so to say, I would have never imagined that a couple of hours later we would have an _ENTIRE OUTLINE_ for what the fic would be and where we were all taking it. That being said, I am more than conscious about the eyebrow-raising nature of this work in particular and I wanted to address a couple of things before you went on and read the thing; the mere principle of this disclaimer is to remind you that just because it's a work of fiction and several people have put a lot of effort into it, it doesn't mean that is suddenly right or the type of dynamic you should aspire to have with whoever happens to be your significant other, it really, really doesn't. In no way do I condone abuse, reckless use of one's position of power, or romanticized stalking. _What is going on in this fic between these two people is wrong,_ and should not be what you aspire to share with someone in any way. 

When I came up with the details that would flesh out the skeleton I was given, I knew from the get-go that this wouldn't be some rosy love story. It was a story of possession and obsession, it was a story in which I took someone highly vengeful, maddened and resented and paired him up with someone who really, really sought after the love and validation he could potentially give her; someone who could brighten up her days and fill the gap that someone else left behind. The context of this relationship is deeply flawed, the nature of this relationship is highly unhealthy. Bear this in mind while you read it and understand I do not mean to write this in a way in which you should approve of it or go _"Awe, I wish they end up together and have their happily ever after!"_ because I'm afraid this would not be the case. 

This fic contains a depiction of several mental health issues from both the protagonists and others, this was important for me to highlight. I, myself, suffer from mental health conditions and also a learning / acting disability. But I know, and this I say with all the humility I can muster, it does not entitle me to somehow depict it all with the best knowledge or so claim that because I suffer from something I can write about everything else like it's no big deal. The pain we've endured ourselves does not give us the right to ignore or belittle someone else's, so in my eternal search for a concise and accurate representation of some matters, I am aware I will make my mistakes and get some things wrong. I am still in a learning process, I am still perfectly able to get things right and set the record straight, I want those readers that, like myself, suffer from a mental health problem, to know I am viewing this from the most respectful point of view possible, and that I am doing about as much research as I can on every subject matter I touch. Anger issues, depression, BPD, nymphomania; everything I touch and mention I have studied at least for a bit before adding it to my fic (that's another reason why this fic will take some time to finish). I just wanted to clear out the air before I do that, before you read anything you find misrepresented or disrespectful. If anything, let's keep in mind this fic will probably have tons of mistakes and misconceptions, as I'm a twenty-one-year-old graphic designer with not the slightest clue on psychiatry aside from my own conditions and the conditions of others around me that have affected me.

To wrap this up, I encourage everyone who works on fiction related to these subjects (or any delicate subjects, mental, sexual, social, physical or otherwise) to please do your research before you write about anything. It might take you a little longer, but it could make a big difference in your personal knowledge, other people's feelings, and your overall storytelling. Thank you. 


	3. No Sympathy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the tiny portion of writing I’ve been reading non-stop for the past two weeks and which I’ve slowly come to dread for one can only read something a certain amount of times before they get sick of it. This is the very first chapter and my intention was to settle the mood before we got to meet Duncan, in many fics I love and even ones I’ve written the first meeting is very early on and the dynamic is set from there; I wanted to build some tension and, at the same time, give Mallory some space of her own before that. It seemed only fair.
> 
> These are the tidbits from this chapter:
> 
> 1) I decided I wanted to make Duncan a Scorpio, and I also wanted to give a little nod to my baby Dorian Gray by making his birthday a week after the latter, so Duncan’s birthday is on November 17th. The reason why I add this, is because that wish took over me after I had written the original version of this chapter and I had already added the snow, I wanted to keep the snow, so I chose to push back the initial date of this chapter to mid to late October just so Duncan’s birthday was not too early into the fic (that has a reasoning of its own) even if that sort of meant I would have to mess with the seasons and for it began to snow in late October, in Washington, for no apparent reason. Climate change is real, okay? Take care of your nature, take care of your oceans, buy a metallic straw if you’re feeling fancy enough. Thanks.
> 
> 2) I had the toughest time trying to figure out exactly what the whole Shepherd related app was about. I will be honest, I don’t know whether to tag it to the Shepherd Unlimited conglomerate or to the Shepherd Freedom Foundation so I will simply address it as “the app” because, yes, I’m that smart. Also, I would like to thank my lovely Chekhovs_Power_Loader for helping out to figure Duncan’s criminal charges and exactly how the app worked and why it was as bad. You saved my ass, Nuke, thank you.
> 
> Remember to leave some kudos and comments, if you would like! You can also find me on Tumblr as mvllorylvngdon, I hope you like this chapter. Lots of love, The Author.

_Breathe. Breathe, Mallory._

The damn voice in her head just will not shut up. She had tried to drown it down with paperwork, with meditation and copious amounts of coffee, but Mallory was new and she was still in the process of thickening her paper-thin skin. Every time she stopped to take a breath, every time she closed her eyes at night it was the same damn thing.

Background noise so alike to static and pots and pans clashing. A never-ending melody of all things hideous, all things dreadful. At times it worked as a source of entertainment, a source of research—some other times it was simply tiring. 

With cold hands and heavy feet, Mallory detached the keys from the ignition and shut the door of her Hyundai Elantra rather loudly; she regretted it, the poor car was fresh out of the shop after having gotten rear-ended and the trunk completely destroyed. Perhaps the gesture would have been insignificant to anyone else, but the car had been kind of a farewell present from her dad before she moved out of the city and also out of the state to start her new job. It was an insult, almost, to be careless with it, like her father always happened to have 25.000$ to spare whenever she decided to turn her car into a giant-sized piece of origami.

Middle-class citizens couldn't afford such a thing, much less when they were psychiatrists fresh out of their low-pay residency at a local hospital somewhere in the middle of Nowhere, Massachusetts, and they rather inclined to the lower end of the spectrum. 

The first thing she noticed that morning was the faint layer of snow that tainted white all the grass outside of the Airway Heights Correction Center in Spokane County, Washington. It was well into the month of October, and the weather had gone ballistic quicker than she could process; one day it was ruthless wind and rainy afternoons then—boom!—cold white shit covering everyone, covering everything much sooner than expected. It saddened her to think of how back on the day the snow was her favorite part of the season when she didn't have to worry about icy roads or the heater breaking inside of her rickety two-bedroom apartment.

_«Maybe this is it.»_ she thought, _«Maybe this grumpy, cold-handed, dead-eyed old lady is who I'll be for the rest of my life. They will remember me as Doctor Mallory Howell, skittish shrink from the Airway Heights Correction Center. Known for treating everyone with silken gloves, and cracking jokes nobody laughs at.»_

Of course, she was only twenty-nine years old, and far from grumpy, she was an outrageously sweet girl. But one could only spend their days in prison for so long before they started feeling like a prisoner, too.

She brought herself through the door and quickly made her way through the security checkpoints with her identification badge well in sight, kindly reciprocating the nods and greetings she found throughout her six-minute walk to her office in one of the upper floors. She could have easily used the elevators and cut the tour in half, but she thought it better to work on her circulation rather than going for what was quicker. Her body would certainly thank her in time. 

Her office was spacious and warm, separated between the area where she interviewed her patients and a modest ante-foyer she decorated herself with the hopes of bringing some light into the otherwise sterile, colorless space she spent her days in. It was usually uneventful, sometimes some co-worker would stop by for some coffee. Most of the time she spent reading through her files and looking for ways to improve the physical and emotional states of those she treated. She used to read, also, at that very moment she was stuck on the fifty-ninth page of Agatha Christie's _Five Little Piggies,_ and she was convinced Caroline Crale had not been responsible for her husband's mysterious death.

Always playing Devil's advocate. 

It was a pity to be out of bed, her job was not one she could call in sick whenever she pleased, to be honest, but she was glad she had the silence of her office to think.

The day before had been rough, she had been in a session with her patient Vincent who had a relapse with his clinical depression since his daughter's wedding was approaching. He had been there seventeen years of his life. He had missed all the childhood and adolescence of two of his kids and gotten locked up six months after the birth of his third—last year he had found out his youngest son did not even know his name and carried the last name of the guy his ex-wife married. An accountant, he had taken them all away and moved to Salt Lake City. Vincent carried a life of pain, dullness, and regret. All due to a stupid mistake made by a stupid, greedy forty-one-year-old. 

His efforts, his future, his youth. They were all tossed into the trash.

And it was not like Mallory was unprofessional or the subject matter, in particular, was any different from what she was used to dealing with. The problem was this man reminded her quite a bit to her own mother, and the mere mention of some of the things he did and some of the things he said caused her to coil on her spot. 

In all honesty, she often disliked those who reminded her of her. If parental issues were to be packed and delivered, hers came with a neon label that read “fragile”. Things hadn't been easy in the Howell household in spite of their good reputation and the picture-perfect Catholic family image they gave, Mallory was an only child and sole confidant to her mother—who cared very little if she was mature enough to understand what she was venting about or not, if she was hurting her or not. The term, however misleading, was “Covert Incest” and it consisted of giving one's children the task to provide with the moral and emotional support the parent in question should have obtained from a professional or—at the very least—another adult.

Boundaries and personal limits were foreign concepts to her, only becoming something relatable and tangible in her life well into her college career; she would never vent, she would never tell anybody—professional or otherwise—about her problems, Mallory was simply incapable of doing so without feeling a deep, burning regret afterward. Not like she had her family to thank for that.

 _«That's an ungrateful thing to say.»_ Mallory scolded herself. 

She had become a very fidgety person, she was always switching her weight from one foot to the other, always playing with her hands. Sometimes she toyed with the rings in her fingers, sometimes she dug her nails in the back of her hand until she bled. It was not pretty in any way, but in spite of all these burdens she became an actual help, and she was decided to help to mend about as many people as she could. 

Mallory wanted to work with children. Mallory wanted to work especially with those who had suffered from the kinds of abuse that are often overlooked and belittled in comparison to others. She knew better than anyone that just because they were not as noticeable it didn't mean they left no scars. She dreamed of being a counselor, perhaps open her own rehabilitation centre someday. But those plans were fogged and scribbled over on her windowpane. Quite frankly, she would have never imagined herself working at a prison, but there was nothing much to say.

Twenty minutes into her day of labor, or so, the strident ringing of her mustard yellow phone disrupted the air and shook her painfully out of her thoughts. A startled Mallory bounced on her spot and fumbled clumsily over her desk until she got ahold of the auricular, the tremor of its curled wire resembling the one of her voice.

“Hello?” she answered.

_“Howell, thank God you're early!”_ exclaimed the voice of her boss, Dr. Daniel Christensen, _“I was fearing you'd get stuck in the ice or call in sick, like the rest!”_

The high-flown tone of his voice was distorted and painful through the phone, this caused her to wince while rubbing her temple with her fingers, not having enjoyed from a repairing night of sleep.

Ever the polite little lady, she chided “Is there anything I can do for you, Doctor?”

_“Yeah, actually—”_ he mumbled some gibberish, interrupting himself. Mallory could picture him, too, in his office looking for a working pen through his drawers, she could hear the slam of one of them coming to a close with a screech echoing through the phone _“—one of our minimum-security inmates required medical attention earlier this morning. We checked him out and physically he seems to be just fine, but he presented all the symptoms of a panic attack.”_ he formulated further.

“Mhm,” she mumbled, elbows resting in front of her while she spoke, “I suppose you would like me to check him out, yes?”

_“Yeah, yeah. That's exactly what I was going to ask of you. Listen, Howell, this is a fairly important case, though. I was hoping you would understand me.”_

“Alright…” this came out more like a question.

Dr. Christensen probably sensed he wasn't entirely getting his point across or had found himself in a better mood after finding his forsaken pen, so he spoke again and this time he suggested.

_“How ‘bout I come up in twenty and discuss this with you in more detail? I just gotta ask my secretary to fetch me some papers I'm yet to sign and I'll be right with you.”_

She wondered just what kind of person would need such personalized attention, but kept herself from voicing it.

“Twenty minutes sounds fine.” she assured him, “I'll see you then, Doctor. Feel free to take your time with your papers, I'll still be here by the time you come by.”

With this, he hung up. Thankfully, Mallory wasn't too sensitive about phoning etiquette or found her feelings hurt by the gesture. She would have hung up on him two seconds later, anyway.

* * *

Punctual like a clock, Dr. Christensen was sipping coffee from one of Mallory's ceramic cups twenty minutes later. She found unnerving how he slurped his coffee loudly and wished for him to burn his tongue and shut up. She decided she would calm herself, the sensory overload always got the best of her when she didn't get a good night of sleep.

She mentally cursed her mother, her job, and Vincent for all of her inconveniences. Nothing another cup of coffee with vanilla soaked sugar wouldn't fix, she had said that with her previous cup but who cares.

“You were telling me the patient was here for a misdemeanor,” Mallory recalled, hoping the mention would cause her boss to stop slurping and bring their meeting to an end quickly. 

Dr. Christensen widened his eyes, trying and failing to play it cool.

“Uh, misdemeanor, yeah. Well, as you may imagine, a misdemeanor wouldn't land an average lad at a federal prison, I mean—” 

He gesticulated a lot, she noted, like he was trying to take the attention from the question itself and give himself time to come up with something clever. He looked like a monkey, juggling three invisible balls. 

By all means, he lied. He lied and was trying to weave himself out of it. 

“—it was rather a matter of information leakage and, I know what you will say, uh, electronic fraud, and whatnot. A breach of information on behalf of the developers of an app last year—did you hear about that scandal with President Underwood and the founders of the Shepherd Freedom Foundation?”

This time it was her gaze widening.

“You're telling me it was Duncan Shepherd having a meltdown this morning?” she demanded, a little harsher than intended, “Duncan Shepherd as in conglomerate heir trialed for _treason_ Duncan Shepherd?”

“Yes.”

“ _The_ Duncan Shepherd?” she stressed, interrupting him.

“Yes.”

_ «Fuck.» _She knew there had to be a reason why her boss and most likely everyone else wanted this matter to be handled with such care, quite frankly she thought Duncan's mother—Annette Shepherd—used enough of her leverage to have Duncan do his time in house arrest, or maybe some sunny correctional centre on the West Coast. Unfortunately for her, Annette happened not to be in the good graces of Madame President, and she must have unleashed all of her fury on her beloved son.

Duncan Shepherd's arrest had brought to light all sorts of scandalous conjectures, namely those rumors that Claire's animosity for the ambitious yet careless businessman was not based upon their brief exchanges prior to his arrest and conviction; not even his crimes, but due to the fact Duncan would happen to be the living reminder of Claire's failed marriage: the illegitimate son of former president Francis Underwood, birthed by Annette Shepherd and hidden under that lousy excuse of an adoption story. 

Mallory had to admit it, when she read it, the whole thing looked almost poetic, the cover-up story they used was a perfect parallel to Frank Underwood's inconvenient conception and humble upbringing.

A man shouldn't be judged for the sins committed by his father, but this one was. In all honesty, even without knowing him, Mallory had the certainty he wouldn't be much different from him. 

After all, Zoe Barnes didn't jump in front of that train because she felt like it.

“Why do we bother so much with him?”

Dr. Christensen's expression turned solemn and emphatic.

“He is as much as a patient as the rest, Mallory” 

The use of her first name made her grimace, she disliked how he thought he could use psychological tactics to evoke some sentiment of guilt and sympathy from her.

She had no sympathy for satraps. 

“If what you wanted was for me to treat him all you had to do was sending him my way, it's my job, after all.” the short woman retorted, arms crossed loosely around her cloaked frame “No need for all that ceremony.”

“Annette, she—” _«H ere we fucking go», _she thought “—she wants us to make sure Duncan will not get into trouble while being incarcerated. He still has three more years to go and it mortifies her to know his health might be deteriorating. It's our duty as caregivers to provide him with the best treatment we can give him.”

Alright, that would make his sentence one of four years. Perhaps he wasn’t having much of a dandy dapper time in jail but compared to the twenty years he could have gotten, Duncan was suffering the least the law thought he deserved.

“He planned on using the personal information of millions of people for his own gain, Doctor,” she complained, like nothing he said moments before had any meaning. “He could have used hundreds of thousands of people as pawns for his own political agenda.”

Again, it wasn't like their own administration wasn't doing it as well, but.

“He didn't. ” he showed her his palms, both as a sign for her to stop and a sign of surrender, the need of standing on neutral grounds. “What's important is he didn't.”

“We won't be giving him any special treatment,” she warned him.

“We don't have to,” he assured her, placing the—thankfully—empty cup on her coffee table by the window “I just need you to promise me you'll keep your eyes open for anything that could endanger him.”

She swallowed down, it tasted like poison.

“That I can do.”


	4. Just Another Mortal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we finally get to meet our very own Duncan Shepherd, folks! I am extremely excited about this, as I’ve been wanting to materialize him somehow for a good while now. When I first scribbled out this whole concept based on my lovelies betas’ ideas, I knew I wanted to—in a way—make him about as similar in phraseology and mannerisms as canon!Duncan. I had to rewatch his scenes a couple of times before I got a good hang of it, and I realized that my first draft of him was completely out of character. You’ll see, I wanted that intimidating, fashionable, imposing Duncan we all know and love! Except that Duncan we all know and love has been us projecting Michael onto him.
> 
> I have been trying pretty hard to capture how his self-confidence often clouded his thinking, and how underneath that conniving exterior lied the corpse of someone extremely malleable and naive—that scene where Claire drags him through the dirt without losing her poise? My actual religion. Of course, he was bound to toughen up after a year in prison; that’s kind of why I decided to ink him up real nice. I have also done my research on the prison he’s at—yes, it’s a real prison—and I was initially worried because I thought I had gotten the uniforms all wrong, I knew I wanted him to have those short-sleeved tan-colored uniforms and in the footage I found the inmates are wearing tan pants and white cotton t-shirts. Then I found out they were wearing those t-shirts underneath their uniforms and they could simply take them off, you know, the dumbass.
> 
> In case you need a visual, I envision Mallory’s dress as a hybrid between her dress when she meets Coco, and Cordelia’s Zimmermann dress from the season finale. It’s something very witchy, very boho, but strictly professional. I, also, did my research on that and to avoid any harassment the female staff in prison (which wouldn’t really be in touch with the inmates on the regular for this same reason) are supposed to have a very demure sense of style; in case you would like to imagine what the most daring attire would be I’m afraid it would be more like Sarah Paulson’s wardrobe in Glass rather than this Dr. Harleen Quinzel fantasy we’ve been fed throughout the years.
> 
> As for Duncan, he’s managed to keep his trimmed stubble, he wears his full tan uniform except he fully buttons it instead of wearing a tacky cotton shirt underneath, he most likely wears a wife-beater under it so nobody has to see any bulk, he’s done some workout during his stay at Airway Heights. So if you want an overall image of him to base your imagination on, picture that one interview Cody did circa the shooting of House of Cards with that floral patterned shirt and the stubble (chef kiss) except with tattoos covering his forearms.
> 
> There’s actually a Tumblr manip I used for inspiration, I had to immortalize that visual miracle.
> 
> Remember to leave some kudos and comments, if you would like! You can also find me on Tumblr as mvllorylvngdon, hope you like this chapter. Lots of love, The Author.

And that was the foreword to their scheduled interview. A muffled excuse, a plea, and a lackluster bunch of words of encouragement from her boss. She did not know what to expect, Duncan Shepherd was arrogant and stoic earlier that day even in spite of his fragile state—even in the drunken stupor of a drug-induced state of calm, the man had refused to be touched by the staff more than necessary, he had huffed and puffed about how he did not really need all of that attention. 

But his story hadn’t always been one of unwellness and discomfort.

The life of Duncan Shepherd July last year was, if anything, one of successes piling over one another; he had been a loved, sheltered child, he only attended the best schools from ages three to eighteen, and graduated with honors at age twenty-three; the masters and degrees came to him as though they were sumptuously decorated invitations, ever so appropriate to a life he had lived in the spotlight, much to his uncle’s dismay. The _Washington Herald_ had once called him a young man of a beckoning ambition and suggested he was to honor and help the Shepherd surname endure.

Officially, he had been the son of Annette Shepherd’s late husband, he had appeared smiling and triumphant in photographs with his parents ever since he was a toddler, but he never carried the man’s last name. 

Back on the day his mother had brushed it off as a family tradition, and her husband’s respect to her family’s legacy; with wounded, docile eyes he had given the impression to be pleased with her desires even if they were lousy excuses to conceal the fact he was desperate to regain whatever pride he had left. The man had always known he was Frank’s flesh and blood and saw the ghost of his darkened eyes shining through Duncan’s with every foul act he committed.

Rumor has it Annette Shepherd had been caught muttering to her lover, Mark Usher, how the man who raised him as his would be pleased to see Duncan get carried away in handcuffs after all those years secretly meeting (and even working for) his biological father. At last, he would have to pay his family’s debts and suffer from a penitence fitting to their sins. 

Those he never again would commit.

Mallory still had a couple of minutes until a guard escorted Duncan into her office, she had been very adamant about the security policies and how—in order to make her patients feel safer and protect their privacy—she didn't need the presence of the guard inside of her office. She had known of cases where the therapist had been attacked even in spite of the presence of others; but Duncan didn't kill a man, he just gathered a few thousands and looked inside their drawers. 

She looked at herself in the mirror, devoid of her white cloak, feeling her newest patient could view her as a potential threat. After all, nobody really liked a person who looked like they could prick them with needles again and again until their arm turned purplish and numb, and have them say they're only doing it to help. What she wanted was to look trustworthy, not like yet another inquisitor, of those he had plenty.

Mallory stood out from the crowd like a poppy in a field of white roses, her gentleness being her trademark feature, it was impossible not to wonder whether or not Dr. Christensen chose her precisely for that—So Annette didn't have to worry about anybody else injecting some tropical drug into her son's neck to keep him sedated for a couple of hours.

_«Could you please try not to look so blue?»_ she asked herself, looking at her reflection in the women's restroom mirror. Her big, hazel eyes with dark lashes and defined lids shone a little less than they used to, even her lips forever fixed in a little pout were pointing downwards. Begrudgingly, she came out of the bathroom and into the familiarity of her office, just because she gave herself an order it doesn't mean she would follow it easily.

A few feet behind her one of the lights from the ceiling flickered ominously in an unpleasant shade of greenish-yellow and something intangible pended in the air like a fly trapped in a spiderweb, swinging to and fro to the tandem of her footsteps.

She passed her ante-foyer and thanked the subtle yet noticeable change between the fluorescent lights and the natural gentle lighting that came from her window and the Tiffany lamp on the corner. For a few minutes she breathed, and all of her mindless worries dissipated. Someone knocked on her door and the sound seemed about to linger there, she waited for a couple of seconds and they knocked again. Nervousness caused her legs to stiffen, and her skin nearly froze.

“Just a second, please,” she called out, surprised by her own poise.

She scolded herself a little, calling it stupid how a psychiatrist could not seem to keep her own anxiety at bay. She used to blame it on her lack of experience, but Mallory could not allow herself to feel nervous every single time she interviewed one of her patients.

Her small hands smoothed down the fabric of her navy blue Zimmermann dress (a fancy birthday present she hesitated to accept) when she stood up from her seat, and surprisingly enough she could feel her anxiousness evaporating whilst she approached her door. She wouldn't see this patient as a burden, she would examine him—and hopefully—she would learn from him.

One does not deal with a loathsome, billionaire in disgrace every day, right? Perhaps she could consider it an honor, not for his status or his money. But for knowing now, more than ever, that if you slip, you pay. Justice and death should have always been the one-two things that would never and could never discriminate. 

Ask Mr. Rich Boy, if you're curious.

With a swift, gentle movement, she opened her door. The first thing she found was the exaggerated built of the guard that was escorting her new patient. He was a perfect Russian Bratva prospect: thick neck, skull, and arms, a few tacky ink works scattered here and there, patchy pale skin and a curious lack of hair. Mallory looked minuscule in front of him, but he stood there with respect; all of her coworkers treated her with the utmost respect. 

“Doctor Howell”

“Alfred” she acknowledged him with a nod.

“I've brought you the one we had at the hospital wing this morning, Doctor Christensen said you were expecting him. ”

Alfred's voice reassembled more one of a dog, barks rather than words, it was odd to see a person looking so feral yet approaching someone so politely. Mallory herself had taught him some manners, so she wasn't surprised he would make use of them in her presence. It was a pleasant change, all things considered. 

Duncan Shepherd peeked out from behind the prison guard.

It had been an act driven by annoyance, she could tell. His expression was tired and uninterested, while he swung forward looking for some scoop on the exchange taking place before him. Mallory had seen him before, in online articles and printed news outlets behind big white letters announcing his association with Gardner Analytics and—later on—their complicity in what could have been one of the greatest political propagandas meet psychology conditionings in America’s history.

She had never seen him in person, however.

Between her clear vertical challenges and Alfred's monster-like proportions, he stood on somewhat middle grounds, although inclining more to the taller side. Duncan Shepherd was young, she could see it in the smoothness of his face and still lively color of his ashy, dark blonde hair. Without the help of her heels, Mallory most likely reached his shoulders. He was lean, the angles in his face seemed to have sharpened ever since imprisoned, and the most notorious change in his appearance was—instead of guessing bare skin under the fabric of his black Armani dress shirts—this Duncan had large tattoos adorning his forearms peeking from out of his tan colored uniform. 

Mallory felt immediately taken aback, even if she made sure not to make it visible. Something entirely different from talking behind his back and hearing conspiracies on his business and upbringing was to look at him in the flesh waiting for her to be able to tend to him. She placed her palm flat to the arch of her door, Duncan reached up to his face and scratched the stubble over his jaw with difficulty. 

She frowned in confusion.

“Alfred, why is he in handcuffs?

The guard shrugged it off nonchalantly “Protocol.”

“He's a minimum security inmate, Alfred ” she chastised, pointing with her palm at Duncan's wrists circles by metallic restraints. Duncan, meanwhile, winced slightly at the sharp tug of the handcuffs when he stretched his hand a little bit too much. With this, he dropped both hands in front of him in silent resignation “You didn't need to cuff him up.”

They engaged in a brief argument, Mallory thought it to be a bit inhuman of them considering the man had nearly been hospitalized, and Alfred was not going to test it and go against his superior's orders. She found it vexing, but she ultimately chose to cave.

All this time Duncan observed them all attentively, enticed by the idea of freeing his hands and moving with ease, his gaze fell once it was clear Mallory would be given no room for negotiations, but he silently thanked her anyway for trying. Unknowingly, she had caused a good first impression.

“Come on in, the guard will be waiting for you to have finished.”

Duncan stepped carefully into her office, cautious eyes scanning his surroundings in half-concealed amazement. Mallory's reception and office was a small—yet habitable—illusion of a real home, the clear Art Nouveau influences creating a sharp contrast between the wood, wallpapers, and stained glasses; and the fluorescent lights shining over metal and oily white paint from the outside. 

He walked slowly, his arms hung limp in front of him with his wrists chained together, into her foyer all the way to her interviewing area. 

No matter the time, no matter the place, all of Mallory's spaces were always pristine and clear, so her office was not an exception but a rule. There was a small mahogany desk decorated with books and succulents, her laptop closed and looking as good a new next to it. She also had a coffee table and two comfortable looking settees facing each other over a circular carpet, a tall Tiffany lamp shone dimly from a corner. Mallory motioned Duncan to sit on the chair in front of her desk, which he immediately did.

“Alright, Duncan…” her voice was silvery and light, rushing behind her desk to take a seat, deprived of her cloak but looking professional as ever “…I'm Doctor Mallory Howell, and I've been assigned your case after the incident from this morning. Perhaps you would have expected Doctor Hawkings or Doctor Shapiro to take care of it—they're the ones to do so, when incidents escalate, anyway—but I'm afraid both are indisposed, the first snow got the best of’em.” 

The man seated in front of her had molten a little into his chair rather than sitting straight up, it had been a rough day after all and he might have wished to loosen up a little and not worry too much about things like his posture. His eyes were bright and attentive on her until the mention of the weather caused him to look out of her window at the faint wisps of cotton that fell from above; his face was struck by two emotions, one was surprise and the other was sadness.

Mallory could only imagine what it was like to own her life and all of her decisions with a broad horizon before her one day, and lose touch with reality to the point she forgot the changing seasons, the next.

Then, again, his gaze was fixed on her. It took all in her not to link her hands under the desk and play with her rings, it wasn't something she took much pleasure in—to be looked at intently, that is. Duncan knitted his brow, his mouth shot open for a moment as though he felt like saying something but chose not to. 

“I don't…” he shook his head, long niveous fingers brushed each other in spite of the cuffs over his lap “…I don't think I'm sure why they would send me here. I thought I simply had low blood pressure.”

She nodded, “Why, yes, you did” the psychiatrist agreed, “But you have no history with hypotension, nor is it stated on your medical record. So we had to look a little deeper into it, as we suspect you to be unwell. It's quite the situation, the one you're in, so these kinds of problems are something we actually foresee.”

“Issues? What do you mean?”

“What you had this morning was the result of a panic attack,” Mallory explained, she rose slightly from her seat to smooth the back side of her skirt; Duncan's expression remained untouched “Probably induced by your stay here, all of the stress of the trials. Maybe even all of it together, or all of it plus something else.”

“That's what we're here to find out, that's what we're here to work on, Duncan.” she continued.

Mallory saw him swallowing hard, shifting slightly on his seat looking for a better position. It marveled her to notice how slightly, carefully, the Duncan Shepherd from the front pages came to life before her; he straightened up completely and cleared his throat placing one hand graciously on top of the other, almost giving the impression he was giving a public statement, not getting psychiatric help in prison of all places.

“I did not suffer from a panic attack, and I do not need any of this.” he declared, his voice clear and eloquent, “I appreciate all of the attention, but if what you wanted was to make me feel better, then you could begin by working on those menus you people serve, rather than trying to get me to talk about personal matters with a complete stranger.”

Duncan gave her a dismissive wave with his hand.

“No offense, Doctor Powell” 

“Howell.” she corrected, dryly.

Ask and you shall receive, said the saying. Mallory had expected some self-sufficient asshole to shine through and shine he did, Duncan Shepherd was clearly not used to being told no or having to face his flaws with no way to lessen or soften them whatsoever. To lose the little control he had left must have been killing him, but she took it lightly, in case the full year he had spent at the Airway Heights Correction Center hadn't been enough, Mallory was in the obligation to bring him back from the Olympus to stand on mundane grounds, with the rest of them.

Mallory was doing her very best to stay professional, fragment herself into several pieces and keep her personal opinions and feelings away from who she was in her guild. Yet she could hear her screaming, banging on the door, begging to be let out. That part of her hated conservative bastards with all of her soul, she hated how they intended to take control of everything and everyone—especially women—always taking credit and reaping the fruits of other people's efforts.

Aside from being Francis Underwood's bastard, what toils did he have to face in comparison to many others? Nannies too strict? Tailor suits too itchy? _Good grief!_ Duncan Shepherd had to be the embodiment of everything she hated in modern day America, and she was glad he had to stay behind bars, even if he would be released in just a couple of years and he would most likely spend the rest of his days in some mansion in New Hampshire or own a three story pent in Central Park North.

Right now, however, he was just another mortal.

“Denial will only make this harder, Mr. Shepherd.” she declared with a purse-lipped smile, and she could see something in his expression shifting, something twitching “If what you want is to get us off your back, you need to give us what we want. And that's the certainty that nothing you do hurts yourself, or others.”

Mallory leaned forward, her fingers laced in front of her over the desk.

“Your mother is deeply concerned, and it would be highly irresponsible on our behalf not to make sure you're okay when people like me are in this place—precisely—to make sure that you are.” 

“I'm on your side” she insisted. 

Duncan took a deep breath, those hooded blue eyes of his showed frustration, on top of all of the annoyance and exhaustion he had been carrying over his shoulders from their first meet. At least, she thought, he had relaxed his shoulders once again and placed his palms flat over his legs, renouncing from the imposing demeanor he had adopted.

He signed loudly and rubbed his eyes with pointer and thumb after a few moments of silence.

“I got…” he motioned at the air, nowhere in particular “…these migraines, they won't go away. All they give me to drink is water and lukewarm apple juice, I'm on a serious caffeine withdrawal.”

Suddenly Mallory became painfully aware of the freshly brewed coffee resting on the inside of her pot, the machine having stopped moments before Duncan and the guard arrived. Of course it was a courtesy, but never a courtesy she had thought of having with an inmate.

Her gaze flickered from Duncan to the machine placed on a table close to the window. The air was filled with the scent of coffee beans and vanilla.

“Um…” she mumbled awkwardly, unsure of what to do. 

“I do have some fresh coffee here, but…” she commenced, “…I am not sure of it's a good idea in your state. You had to be medicated earlier today, it could be contraindicatory.” 

Duncan folded his legs slightly, seemingly shrinking into his seat at the same time Mallory rose from hers, her steps slow and steady. Of course she wouldn't make a fuss over a cup of coffee, it was the excess of trust she would give him so early into their conversation. What if he found a way to use that against her? Claim she wanted to crush some pills and force them down his throat? Or make the coffee spill on himself and claim she tried to burn him? Her hallway and office were some of the few spots without security cameras in the building, how was she supposed to defend herself? Mallory bit her lip, and her gesture wasn't unnoticed.

“I'm not quite sure that would be right, Duncan”

“It would be only a cup of coffee…” he retorted. 

She bounced her foot a bit, impatiently. His eyes found hers and refused to let go of them, there was something so frank and vulnerable about the look on his face, it twisted her insides to think she was being unnecessarily cruel.

“Doctor Howell, I pay for smuggled cigarettes on the daily and many of the other inmates pay for even worse. A cup of coffee to ease my migraine wouldn't get us into any trouble…”

Duncan looked up at her once again, and she tried not to feel the same old shiver running up her spine at the sudden similarity of those eyes, how they looked so pleading. They took her eight years back.

“…Please.”

This earned a groan from her, and she fought the roll of her eyes that threatened with messing with her professionalism when she circled the room and poured a steamy cup of coffee for Duncan, being careful of not using too much sugar on accident. Out of her sight, he had his eyes glued to his feet fighting back the grin that stretched across his lips, the clinking sound of Mallory stirring the spoon inside his cup tasted like victory to him.

Mallory passed from taking a new cup herself, the excess of coffee in her system was making itself present by a state of hyper awareness that only worsened her sleep deprivation and overall stress. 

The cup was hot and heavy, though, which she thanked as her hands were always so cold.

It was a bit awkward to hand Duncan his coffee seeing his hands were restrained by his handcuffs, so—as much as it mortified her—Mallory had to carefully place the cup on his hands, he was quietly mumbling his thanks, the bottom of the cup resting on his right hand's palm and the fingers of his left hand hooked around the handle for leverage. 

Duncan's fingers brushed hers not subtly at all, Mallory felt a faint tingle spreading across her cheeks and she held her breath by instinct. The action was ordinary and in this context accidental, but she found it intrusive and downright offensive, the look she found in his eyes was so innocent it almost bordered in mockery.

She pulled away.

“There you go,” she limited herself to say, turning around. 

Behind her, Duncan Shepherd found a remedy for his ever sore eyes in the every line and crevice of her body. First they fixed on the gilded ends of the strands that waved and weaved out of her updo, then they treaded to the curve of her fair-skinned neck down to the outline of her back—a narrow little waist even under the fabric, wrapped like a present, he told himself—and the hips and legs he could no longer see, yet he guessed were just a supple. His breathing quickened and the vein protruding on his neck throbbed with abandon, then it eased. 

Mallory saw and thought none of it, but his throat went dry.

Duncan had more than a single tattoo, she'd noticed, only she hadn't seen them from up close until then. A great portion of both his forearms were covered in art, the kind of art that wasn't made with a dull needle and some pen ink. His right forearm had a strange creature surrounded by ash and smoke, it had a body covered in thin spotty fur and its limbs were monstrous and big, eyes light and devoid of pupils with the head and chest of a man and the legs and hooves of a goat—a satyr. 

Whoever made it knew their art, it wasn't a comical cartoony version of it, rather an epic depiction of one of mythology's most gruesome monsters. Hideous to no end yet in its own way fascinating.

His left forearm intrigued her the more—it took a cautious gesture and a excuse to drift her gaze off into the distance when she was in fact giving the drawing a double take. It was the statue of the Abraham Lincoln monument surrounded by coiling snakes that hung from his shoulders and arms and wrapped around his ankles.

In a stern, elegant calligraphy written on top one could read a single line to wrap it all: _“Control the narrative.”_

The crisp sound of rustling papers brought her back to reality.

Mallory sought after any sign of pain or discomfort she could find in that man's file, but the more she read through it the more she felt like she was running in circles. Nothing hinted anything but eventual resignation on his end. Duncan reacted in a hostile fashion to his initial arrest—while being interviewed and nationally broadcasted, no less—but this didn't surprise her. A tense silence arose from that point onwards, the investigations were hasty and prompt, it took one blow to fan out the curtain of smoke the Shepherds had been keeping in front of their murdy schemes and Claire Underwood did not hesitate in doing the most to put him in jail.

This last part she kept to herself, even though Duncan wouldn't hear.

“This, this isn't easy for you,” she complied “But I wholeheartedly believe you would feel better if you spoke to me, Duncan.”

Hidden behind the pristine white rim of porcelain, his pale blue eyes were all she saw, they exuded a strong and deep emotion she failed to decipher. Pride, perhaps, pride and discomfort. How dare she acting like she knew much of him, anyway? Duncan held the cup in his hands.

“I'm not sure of what happened this morning—”

“That's valid.”

“—It has been happening for a while now, that's all.” he confessed.

Mallory watched him, carefully. She was certain at some point his mask would drop, and she would be able to read what lies underneath. At times the process of getting a patient to open up was unfruitful and frustrating, still the stigmas surrounding her profession and those who needed from her service made it hard to be honest; they all reached out to her, ultimately, in a moment of desperation. They kept their appointments discreet and secret, some paid in cash, some told nobody. Mallory, however, would always listen to intently; and she would give them what they needed, however morbid. 

Most of the time, they needed honesty, they needed to get back to the root of the problem, to search for the skeleton deep in their closet and face it. She didn't judge, anyhow, to lessen their pain and fight their urges was what she was born to do.

How absurd it was to think so, but she couldn't help but comparing the act of going to therapy to hiring a sex worker for the night. Taboos.

“How have been you been feeling?” she questioned, her tone was not honeyed yet it held some softness to it “Here at the centre?”

Duncan's thumb brushed the underside of his coffee cup, deep in thinking, his posture was still cautious and straightened. It almost looked like his long limbs would have to bend and break to fit in his seat—he wasn't excessively tall, no, but the way he carried himself unlike many of her patients wasn't one that would cause him to coil into spaces attempting to make himself disappear. In fact, one could say he nearly tried to occupy as much space as possible. 

The idea of him being daring enough to reach forward and flop his feet crossed at the ankles over her desk toyed in her mind.

“It's utter bullshit, being here is pretty fucking boring!” alright, she wasn't the biggest fan of foul language—her nose wrinkled in discontent for a quarter second before she fixed herself, remembering she was not supposed to make that face out loud—but at least, he was speaking “I read everything I had to read, I watched everything I had to watch and I even joined one of those meditation programs for the sake of being entertained, but it all lost its charm all too quickly.”

“After a while I started losing track of time,” he continued “I didn't know whether it was Monday or Tuesday, then the whole month of October went by and I didn't even notice. I missed by own imprisonment anniversary.” 

He chuckled, but it was a bitter rugged sound that implied no actual amusement. Mallory nodded in understanding, she saw him taking a big intake of breath. 

“My own mother didn't call me. She didn't tell me. I think it became easier for her to send a monthly stack of cash in, hoping I'd spend it unwisely and—I don't know—smoked myself to death, or something.” 

The swift soft scratches of her pen on her notebook caused him to look up, and this time it was Duncan taking in the sight of her. Her brow was knitted together yet intentionally softened, focused. Her eyes he couldn't see—unsatisfied by not quite knowing the color of them—but her eyelashes were long and straight casting shadows on her sharp cheekbones; they reminded him of Sharon Tate's, in fact her face in general reminded him of her. 

The soulful eyes, the little nose, her pursed thin lips.

Duncan had always liked his women with plump bow-shaped lips, he liked how they spread glistening and needy when he pressed on their lower with his thumb and showed their teeth. He liked how they looked around—numerous—things, how certain shades and colors of lipstick made them look almost exaggerated and vulgar. Duncan was particularly fond of biting them until they bled or bruised, and feeling them melt and mold under his, that's why it puzzled him so to wonder how those thin little lips would feel. 

No, that was outrageous and desperate. He put the blame on how he hadn't interacted with more women than the ones he could count with one hand in the year that had passed. None of them of an age he'd pursue, none of them of his liking. But this doctor, well, this one he didn't mind looking at. 

That is, until she locked her gaze to his in sudden interest. A bolt of warmth spread on his chest, the feel of it was painful, exquisite. 

Just like he though, her eyes were hazel, like Sharon's.

“I take it is the feeling of being uninspired and unattended what bother you most, isn't it?” her voice was matter-of-fact, but gentle.

Duncan brushed it off quickly, his pride wounded “I've been used to working nonstop since I was fifteen years old. I'm used to being busy, being useful.” the man bore the face of one unbothered, but in his care was the detail; a bare depiction of his constant insecurity, his need of being seen under a certain light “There's nothing here for me to do, unless you would count picking up the trash from the roadside in as one fitting.” 

There was a petulant edge to his voice, the thought of it offensive. 

“The inmates are given tasks, and if you're given one of the sort you have no more choice than to comply” she explained, unyieldingly.

An insouciant look shone over his face, “Yes, but I haven't been given any” Duncan balanced his cup absentmindedly, clearly he thought himself to be above any ruling.

To which she replied quite simply “You could be, if so I order.”

His smile faded.

Mallory had heard it everything, from the tattletales starring his mother and her presumptive escapades in San Francisco aged seventeen, from her deep admiration for Claire Hale, to her jealousy over the new Underwood marriage and even her proclivity to glorify Francis’ Machiavellian tendencies, the rumors of incest between her and her brother William, even the rumored countless times she toyed with her housekeepers before tossing them out like trash. 

Like most heirs in disgrace, Duncan’s every slip had been outed to the press once his trial had been settled and the media did its mess to dig up about as many dirt on him as they could.

She hadn’t been surprised with what she found, matter of fact she had been so busy back on those days she had if anything skimmed through the countless headlines and articles that mentioned his name: some spoke of his early life relationships, how his childhood friends were doing in comparison, his rumoured antics during college all the way to all the people he had harmed during his work of spionage disguised as an application. Mallory was glad to say she had never downloaded it, a couple years had passed since she last ventured in anything social network related. She hadn’t done it, out of fear, but now if anything she was relieved, last thing she wanted was to know her patient knew some of her darkest secrets, if such thing for her even existed.

It all felt so vulnerable and overexposed, like a sore thumb. 

Notwithstanding, everything she heard of Duncan were rumors and assumptions made under ill intentions, his behavior throughout his life had been so impeccable; or at least that what his family made it seem. For the few unknowing, it was fair to mention the Shepherd family were the founders and owners of the greatest conglomerate in America to the date; every news outlet, every charity work, every devious accion swept under the rug regardless of its political inclination, they were all a part of the Shepherd’s puppet show. Give a man the chance to put himself in a narrative and he can only hope to make the best out of himself, give a man the chance to shape the narrative and you’ll have the power of causing millions of others make whatever they want out of him, instead. The Shepherds were responsible for all the coverage or lack thereof of countless delicate subjects in the news; sometimes internationally. 

William “Bill” Shepherd had quite a fixated way to work things, his _Modus Operandi_ had been molded and executed by all the men and women of his family alike, way before he was more than a speck of dust floating aimlessly in a darkened galaxy; he was happy with the way things worked, and how they always worked for him. However, in comes his sister with her greedy son and her taste for bedding the worst of suitors, claiming Duncan’s fresh insight was exactly what they needed to master the game.

If only any of them had known Duncan’s thirst for power and concealed hunger for his father’s approval (this Mallory only pondered, in no way could she confirm this was true no matter how cautious and strategic her questions about Duncan’s childhood were) would lead them all to this. First time in their story a family member had fallen so hard and so fast. All there was left for her to find out was what he was hiding underneath all their Republican propaganda. Thus far, close but no cigar.

One thing she noticed, however, is that Duncan’s urge to one-up himself was driven mostly by his desire to get from under his mother and uncle’s thumbs. He refused to speak of them, his gaze traveled from left to right, making her wonder if he was examining the ancient world map framed on her wall, right behind her. 

Some other times she would catch him staring, Duncan rushed to clear his throat and speak about whatever they were discussing at the time; yes, he had assured her he felt useless, but he came from a highly classist home with quite a vague definition of basic responsibilities and was quite certain he would be useless at any handy work, in spite of confessing one of his favorite activities had been gone camping and hunting with his uncle Bill at the Appomattox-Buckingham State Forest in Virginia. 

Just then she had seen that first hint of a smile draw itself across his lips.

“I hadn’t gone hunting in a very long time, though…” he shrugged.

Secretly she was glad, hunting was downright barbaric. 

“...Yes, I don’t think of it as necessarily terrible.” Mallory withdrew her reading glasses from her face and folded them pressing the monture to her chest, “After all, it’s not like killing animals is the greatest of funs. Especially now our planet is dying.”

He chuckled “Is the chase I liked best, I didn’t care whether I caught them or not.”

“You called yourself an overachiever just moment ago.”

“That I am, well, in some instances,” Duncan stirred on his seat and stretched out his possibly sore forearms in front of him, she saw the outline of a troubled frown as he glanced down, a hint of copper shining in the color of his hair under her warm lights “I’m not the greatest fan of killing, myself, especially when there’s nothing the animal can do to defend itself. My uncle always went for the small preys, not like that surprised me.”

Alright, maybe there was the possibility that _perhaps_ Mallory would have taken Bill Shepherd as a blood-thirsty motherfucker beneath all those cardigans and fancy turtlenecks. It was surprising to have his own nephew out him, himself. 

Mallory was about to try and venture further when her gaze met the clock on the opposite wall, strategically placed so she could keep track of the time she had spoken with her patients, when she realized their hour was up. Her hands suddenly itchy at the unsatisfied need to figure out exactly what had stressed him so, aside from feeling remarkably lonely. She had been so close she could touch it.

“Alright, Duncan. Looks like we ran out of time for the day.” she announced, even if Duncan himself didn’t show any signs of any emotion in particular, it was like the window panes in his eyes glazed over “I am trusting perhaps you’re feeling slightly better?”

“Yes.” he replied, Mallory could have sworn his jaw clenched.

“I will fill in a report, and give it to Doctor Christensen, he was really worried about you today…” for once her eyes were soft, truth be told she was slightly relieved by knowing she had done her deed and done it successfully “...If you would like to, however, and if you think you need it, we settle a session schedule too.”

Now she saw it, in the look in his face and the hesitation in his responses. He felt conflicted, perhaps he had saw it all as a way to vent after much too long without someone he could actually talk to, and now had to decide whether or not he was willing to open up more to her.

His answer surprised her the more.

“Yes.” he said.

And with this he put an end to their beginning.

Mallory would try to not think much of it and mind her own business as her day went on, however uneventful, try to not think of the strange force that wreathed him when he was more than a face printed on paper, a name shouted in a whisper. It surprised her, it dizzied her how he was not half as unpleasant as she had imagined and even felt guilty over thinking all those things about him without having the time to speak to him in person and realize he was incredibly depressed over the life he felt he had lost.

She managed to get him out of her mind by eight in the evening when she was able to hop in her car and drive home, looking forward to the next day instead of their scheduled wednesday session. 

That was until she stopped by a local diner desperate for a snack before she got home, it was greasy and poorly lit but somehow it felt like home. The remembrance of a younger self eating herself into oblivion over sauce-stained annotations in a floral notebook; all terms and names highlighted in different shades of pastel, flooded her mind. Mallory grabbed that morning’s print of the Washington Herald and flipped through the pages absently while sipping on her vanilla milkshake.

Quite often she found it funny how explanations often came in different paces, some too soon, some too late. It was vast her knowledge, and little her experience, perhaps rather than wondering on Duncan Shepherd’s mother’s affairs, she should have focused on his other family relations and their current state of events.

Because that was Bill Shepherd’s name in the obituary page from that morning.


	5. Proverbs 6:25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time no see! Hello, my darlings. I would like to thank you all for your patience, as it turns out to be I'm laptopless at the moment. I didn't know I could post on mobile, turns out I could! Please excuse me for any mistakes, this entire thing was written on mobile. I am extremely excited about this one because I feel like it's finally dwelling into the full story. I wish my author notes were a bit more specific, my bad ❤
> 
> A shoutout to my baby Nuke for inspiring to write a crucial scene from this chapter. Also a shoutout to my lovelies from the MCA, your support is everything to me. 
> 
> And shoutout to myself, cause is my twenty-second birthday 😊

“I am so sorry, Duncan,” she breathed “I had no idea.”

“It was not precisely something I planned on sharing with anyone, Doctor Howell. There’s no reason for you to be sorry, it’s not like there was anything you could have done about it.”

Mallory felt in the need of apologizing, regardless, it was her job as Duncan Shepherd’s therapist to seek after his well-being and keeping an undying eye both over what he showed to her, and what he didn’t. Duncan didn’t seem to mind much what had happened, or whether or not Mallory knew his uncle and most remarkable father figure had died in the late hours of the night, the night prior to their first meeting.

“Losing your uncle after his long, uphill battle to cancer is tragic,” she stated, perhaps an untimely comment that bordered the silliest of obvities, but important all the same “Fainting the way you did at the commissary was perfectly understandable, especially if it was just moments after finding out about his passing over a forty-five-seconds phone call.”

“He was diagnosed a few months before my arrest,” he recalled, clearing his dry throat “My mother knew about it, his closest workers knew about it, weakling Marcus fucking Usher knew about it.” Duncan shrugged, resting his elbows on the arms rests of his seat “They all knew it, but me.”

Mallory fought the impulse to widen her eyes, even in spite of what seemed to be a dysfunctional relationship between an uncle and a nephew, this was unprecedented. What were Bill Shepherd’s intentions behind leaving his nephew and heir in the shadows while he battled a deathly disease? Was he afraid greedy and hungry-for-change Duncan would try and quicken his death in order to get his hands on his inheritance sooner? Was it the fear of what he could do, what he couldn't?

“Do you have any idea why your uncle would choose not to tell you?” she ventured.

Duncan shook his head no, his brow was furrowed tightly casting shadows over his eyelids, his jaw was also so contracted it hurt to look—and his hands were rubbing on the juncture of it with saddened haste. Duncan must have been clenching his jaw in his sleep. It wouldn’t surprise her if, had this condition persisted, not only would his headaches worsen, he could even wake with a metallic taste in his mouth and indentations on his tongue. Mallory even foresaw the small inclination of his front right tooth increasing and overlapping the left more noticeably.

“He didn’t trust me.” he spat out, his eyes devoid of any light, his ache as palpable as the hardened lines over his forehead, those that would easily disappear when he relaxed “He was constantly, verbally abusive towards me. He had always been. For as long as I can remember I can see him; glaring, scolding, fuming. Waiting for me to slip to take out his rage on me, even if only by words.”

“Was your uncle ever physically violent towards you, Duncan?”

His gaze flicked from the ground and met hers in a hesitant gesture. For a moment all the harshness from his words did step aside to let an almost juvenile shocked expression strike his features, suddenly Duncan Shepherd looked a decade and a half younger.

Duncan momentarily averted her gaze, Mallory’s remained open and kind. He spoke.

“A few times, when I was sixteen or maybe seventeen.”

“Alright…”

“He…” Duncan trailed off, a subject like this coming from a man of power like him was certainly a tough image to picture. It was tough when all he had shown to the world had been authority and power, an iron grip on the wheel that was ripped from his trembling hands “...There were moments during my adolescence when he had little to no patience with me. I had just spent six months in school away from him and away from my mother, I had grown reckless and gotten into trouble at school to get my parents’ attention. He didn’t take any misdemeanor lightly.”

“Did your parents approve of it?”

“My father was indifferent, to him it was inconceivable to think my own uncle would raise his hand at me so he disregarded it as a desperate attempt to get their attention—which wouldn't have been too out of character at the time—and my mother often fought him about it.”

“Yet she still allowed it to happen,” she declared, not replied, “Why did your mother think your uncle had the right to hit you, Duncan?”

“All their lives they had shared everything.” he explained “When I was born it seemed like they had yet another business in common. He didn't have a family of his own, I was all the legacy he had. So they divided the task of raising me, and it was not like my father minded that much—when it came to me he was always as useful as a mounted deer head, anyway.”

Taxidermy analogies aside, Mallory found odd, if not alarming, Duncan's uncle taking on the task of raising him with more haste than his own father; her mind drifted towards unexplored, somewhat controversial lands. The headline taken from a mouth-to-mouth tabletop gossip bore more credibility than ever.

Outwardly, Mallory listened to his every remembrance—however sour it might be—and showed but empathy and concentration in her face with her hands resting languidly over her lap under the desk. Inwardly? Inwardly she brought herself up to him, tracing his face with her fingers; his strong brow, his blue eyes, the shape of his lips and the shape of his jaw, her hands brought themselves up and laced into his dark blonde hair. Every touch, every detail, all of them which she listed and named, assigning them to one out of two different portraits based on likeliness in pure, scientifical fascination.

One of Bill, one of Annette.

Voice drenched in curiosity, she leaned forward and asked him.

“What was that you did?”

“I cannot remember,” he frowned, but something about his voice made it doubtful “I used to do all kinds of stupid shit back then. I think I must have gotten caught drinking at my dorm with other kids, or maybe it was that time somebody told him I'd been a bad influence on the son of some friend of my uncle's, that I'd turned him into a queer.”

Slowly, but with no interruption, the picture was becoming clearer.

“So you're saying you were beaten over that—?”

With fingers laced, Duncan looked out of the window, both haunted and resigned.

“—You're telling me the abuse on behalf of your uncle could have been of a homophobic nature.”

“He had his principles,” he asserted “However antiquated. Just because I didn't share them doesn't mean I didn't have to respect them.”

A grimace washed over his features when he turned his gaze to her. Outside the sky was wreathed in clouds, how grim it was to see they'd taken the blue of his eyes with them.

“I simply chose not to.”  
  
At this, she shuddered.

For a second silence pended in the air like a new ghost, ripe and fresh out of a corpse's mouth whose blood still warmed their veins hesitant, confused as to why it was no longer coursing. Mallory turned her attention to her papers and mentally admonished herself for taking a glance at them; even the title centering her page felt unbecoming and unfitting of their situation, she could only pray Duncan could not make words out of the intricate cursive scribbles flipped upside down from where he was.

Had he done so, silence would be the least of her worries.

Mallory compared their silence to a ghost, an aimless entity floating over an empty carcass of a human, watching over it powerless and mortified. Lividity lingered and so did their words—his thoughts, his confessions, her words of encouragement—turning the paling skin purplish and convoluted where the blood settled.

“Alright…” her pen was pressed to her desk carefully, a hand toying with the rim of her glasses, taking them and folding them next to her notebook “Having mixed feelings during this period of grief is perfectly understandable. This man acted like your father all your life, he took liberties and drew lines that were difficult to stay into; I hope you are aware that it's okay to feel conflicted, Duncan.”

“Yeah, I guess it is” his voice monotone, stale.

“It is.” she insisted.

Blink twice and you miss it. At that moment it was that Mallory learned, that the high and mighty Duncan Shepherd would allow himself to show weakness, not but a second; like stone-cold water slipping through the rocks, too fast and forceful for her frail hands to catch.

Duncan slumped himself against the back of his chair, she pondered whether or not it was worthy to try to hold onto the stream—to push it, to insist—but the ghostly ticking of her clock and a scene that seemed to fade reminded her that once again, he had slipped.

Hours later she would find herself, boiling in self-pity and frustration, balancing her weight on the worn-out blue cushion of one of the chairs in front of Dr. Christensen's desk, the man eyed her—official—file over with a puzzled expression, almost as though the text had been typewritten in Russian. Believe her, to her it was the very same.

“I don't get it” he trailed off from above the paper “is he depressed or not?”

Mallory could have sworn the ring in his voice was gossipy, over petulant. Notwithstanding, she cleared her throat and mustered up an ounce of professionalism, it was not a good look to pout over her paperwork; let alone in front of those who called her their subordinate.

“Terribly.”

“Moments after I failed to get him to talk more about his and his uncle's relationship, Duncan expressed his concern over the succession of Shepherd Unlimited.” she continued, fiddling absently with the pendants of her bracelet, “Some member of the board who was never fond of him is now taking care of Duncan's duties while he does his time. That's what Annette's call rotated around, she gave Marcus Usher the spot that was reserved for her son, because Duncan is unable to tend to his inherited business and Annette is much too shaken to do it herself. ”

Dr. Christensen frowned at the information “I thought the Shepherds were far too protective of their business to use an intermediary”

“So did I.”

The middle-aged man queried, dragging his feet from behind his desk to his coffee machine ready to pour himself a cup without having the subtlety to even ask her if she wanted one. Not like she minded much, she was much too preoccupied bracing herself for the impending slurping.

“Why do you think Annette Shepherd, of all people, would choose Marcus Usher over everyone else to take the wheel of the Shepherd conglomerate? Shouldn't she be…” he pondered “…I don't know, at least a bit nitpicky about it?”

“They're lovers. Mark and Annette.” she blurted out before she could stop herself.

Daniel stopped in his tracks and spilled a few droplets on the counter.

“I mean,” she corrected herself “that's public knowledge. It was outed during the trials. I didn't get to touch the subject but, judging by the way Duncan referred to him, they're not too fond of one another.”

Suddenly even the sound of her breathing was much too loud, Mallory looked at Daniel with widened eyes, shifting awkwardly on her spot and waiting for some sort of response. He shrugged, nonchalantly so, and wiped off the spillage she caused with a paper napkin.

He tossed it into the trash, and Mallory couldn't help but to sympathize with the shriveled piece of paper, pathetically falling into the bin and hitting rock—or should she say plastic—bottom.

Oh, yes, Mallory and her tendency to sympathizing with garbage.

“Really? And what did he say?”

She wetted her cold lips and walked back through their long since finished interview. There was so much she wanted to say and so hard to compress it all into an organized file, let alone voice it.

“He called him a weakling.”

“Ouch”

Mallory continued, hesitantly so, it was hard to get used to reporting every aspect of her interview to a superior. Even if that was the point, in this case, “He also said he was unaware of his uncle's illness until it was virtually too late. Those the closest to Bill Shepherd—including Marcus, and Duncan's mother—knew of his health condition and agreed to keep it from him.”

He took a pause, mostly out of shock, to drink from his washed-out orange ceramic cup; there it was, the feared slurp. Mallory had to consciously keep her right eye from twitching.

“Maybe he wanted Duncan's hands off of his money” he suggested, coughing through his words the next time he sipped his coffee loudly “Trying to—God, sorry—trying to keep him from blowing his inheritance prematurely on escorts and, I don't know, trips to Tulum.”

She winced.

“I did some research on Duncan after I got home last night,” she confessed, “I don't think he's the escorting type.”

“What's his poison, then?”

And so she thought about it, all the things she was learning and all the things she was hiding in spite of how little he had known him for. For some reason it felt wrong to share the utmost private thoughts he had begun to spill in the privacy of her office; all for the sake of Annette Shepherd's agenda. Now she knew, now could see the woman behind the candelabra, and it appealed her so little to cooperate with her cause.

It felt tasteless and crude to share it with a man such as Daniel Christensen, who appeared to be more interested in the scoop on one of Washington's finest to care for his work ethics. No, she wouldn't share everything she knew—and God forbid she did, God forgive her for it—she would keep it to herself. Both Duncan's ailing and her own theories on Duncan's true heritage.

She could feel perspiration gathering at her palms at the prospect of keeping a secret, of overstepping a boundary under the pretense of shielding a patient from his own kin's ulterior motives. Surely Dr. Christensen would be too busy choking on his coffee to notice the sudden nervous shift on her gaze from his face to the door that led to the corridor, surely he wouldn't see a nonchalant one taking its place.

Mallory brushed it off, drunk on the feeling of having an advantage.

“Racecars and Harings.”

  
A memory can be the ghost of a caress.

A memory can be an open wound.

Right now they met somewhere in between, and he was shot through a slingshot from one end to another faster than his mind could process. One second he caught himself dwelling in the sweet sound of his mother's voice, calling him in from that opulent East Hampton's mansion they stayed at the summer before he started the third grade; welcoming him with a plate of chocolate chip cookies and a rerun of the latest episode of the Power Rangers. The next he had to make fists out of his hands to keep himself from brushing a cut on his lower lip—the product of a ringed hand punch—that had long since healed.

A memory was a voyage, the destination uncertain.

What was the point of all these comments, and questions, and never-ending rambling on his early life and traumas? To torment him? Hadn't his state been so precarious, it was likely that Duncan would have stormed out of the office, talked her off, sworn not to ever return. He wished he could get far and away, stand under a scalding hot shower trying to purge himself from those thoughts, trying to scrub his skin free from those memories; but every time he stopped to breathe in between each sentence, he saw he was still caged inside a pigpen surrounded by humid air and iron bars.

Hell, if he wasn't getting any comfort he might as well ditch the dirt on his mother. So he did, he told Dr. Howell about her infidelities to his father, about her mistreat towards her staff and the consequences of that and her temporal taste for prescription pills. All of her neglect, all of her villainy, he left bare. There was a time in which Duncan himself would have destroyed whoever was idiotic enough to speak against his mother, but during those times he wasn't clad in tan and white, and during those times his hands weren't chained together over his lap, wrists stiff and wounded.

It felt corrosive inside of him, all that anger, but he couldn't give it up. And it was not just his anger what seeped through him, it was not just some memory he desperately wished to purge.

Duncan was stunned over his interest in Mallory Howell.

A vision wrapped in a haze. The night before he had tried to ease the dull ache in his skull and the constriction in his chest with a pleasant memory or some pointless promise of self-improvement, to cast out a Patronus from some flimsy, dusty little place inside his soul. But every time he tried and summoned something from deep within, the vision morphed back into the sight of her. He called himself desperate, he called himself pathetic, he had threatened himself into burying the thought. All to no avail.

That afternoon, that vinegar-scented gorilla who had taken him up to her the previous day had dropped him off at the same spot. Every feeble attempt to get that girl off his mind turned to dust when he saw her shyly peeking out wrapped in that white robe, the rim of her glasses resting crooked atop the bridge of her tiny nose.

She wore a shorter dress that day.

Duncan was positive about it. He had remembered her outline—the thin waist, the clothed arms, the hint of roundness of the rear he couldn't see hiding underneath all that navy blue fabric—and how she reminded him so much to one of his predilect silver screen queens, and a certain dame that once went by the name of Lady Hamilton.

Mallory Howell had engaged in a dull conversation with Albert—or was it Arnold?—right in front of him, once again, disregarding his existence. Despite the sudden annoyance he felt, prickling into his skin, Duncan moved his gaze further up the hallway pretending the arch of the door of what he could guess was a restroom was the most fascinating thing he had ever encountered.

Somewhere a light bulb flickered.

_Bollocks._ Was he supposed to believe a guard, of all people, would have the express necessity of talking to one of the prison therapists for a time longer than twenty seconds? He'd walked him up, he'd say good afternoon, what else did he fucking want? Mallory was kind enough to provide him with a forecast of the weather, and her low voice—somewhere between dulcet and husky—mumbled incomprehensibly about what he thought was that morning's traffic.

“—awful!” he'd caught her mid-sentence.

“—I heard Preston nearly lost a tire and Roberta had to call in sick after the change of weather messed with her tonsils. She's still bedridden, I heard, but I hope she can join us next week.”

“You can tell she's missing, huh?” the guard teased, causing her to laugh.

Perhaps they were referring to some prison staff with a particularly perky personality, but all Duncan could think about was the way he'd ripped a laugh out of her; it almost didn't seem they'd been bickering on for ten minutes the day before over the fact he'd cuffed Duncan as a precaution. It bothered him still, both the delay of his session and Arnold's—Albert's, maybe, he couldn't tell—pitiful attempts to flirt with Mallory, but it was inevitable for him to find delight in the sound of her laughter.

She was a splatter of spring on the lifeless walls.

The little number she was wearing that day reached somewhere a couple of inches above her knee, it was stripped in white over a base of dusty pink, adjusting mindlessly to her upper frame and dripping down her thighs in an even line. It was odd to see her, carrying the cloak symbolic of her profession and shielding her eyes behind her thick-rimmed specs, yet still bearing hints of the schoolgirl she once had been. Fresh as a rose, young as spring, scratching her forehead with guilt when the giant before his failed to make her remember about some television show from the seventies he had just quoted.

“No, no. I'm sorry. I really cannot place that, I have no clue.”

Then she turned to him, out of the blue.

“Ready for today Duncan?” she'd asked him with a smile.

So he'd nodded, unable to swallow down the knot in his throat. God, the feeling of warmth that shot through him was of sheer adoration.

  
  
If only she'd stayed that sweet.

When she started off their conversation with a heartfelt apology falling from her rose-tinted lips, that's when he knew they were off to a rough start. Duncan didn't want to talk able his uncle, he didn't want the bitter aftertaste that came with his memories; any pair of lying eyes could turn their gaze and pretend they didn't see any of bigotry, his wickedness, but Duncan had suffered from it in the flesh—he wished not opening a box containing rusty nails and broken toys, his most painful years and all their souvenirs. Quite simply, Duncan had only hoped for the ghost of him to carry everything six feet under; his grudges, included.

Mallory differed. But yet again, it was part of her job to do so.

She was tactful and practical when it came to her questioning, admiringly empathic, perhaps a little too much for a woman of her profession. Stoicism had always been something about therapists that ticked him off the wrong way, rest assured it was meant to depict unbiasedness, but to him, it came off as disinterest; and Duncan was no man to accept but one's undivided attention.

To break down the walls he had deliberately built his whole life was a tough task, Duncan often despised the idea of venting to others—ever the untrusting politician—and thoroughly refused to do as much as sharing his current feelings or details on his trial, despite how common it was to share stories within inmates.

_“So, how does a young fella like yourself end up in this gutter?”_ an inmate once asked him, having known of his gilded twinkling lifestyle before the whole disaster.

Duncan had limited himself to give him a gallic shrug, unfriendly eyes. The man sped up behind him whilst he tried and failed to leave him and enter the library.

_“I don't know, how does an old man like yourself manage to walk so fast with ten pounds of ballsack weighing him down?”_ he spat back.

Needless to say, Duncan didn't precisely have many friends.

His head was pounding, that had become such an ordinary feeling in his life; Duncan strongly considered switching the cigarettes for painkillers, if only hadn't the memories of his mother stumbling up the staircase with a tiny yellow bottle and a wine glass in hand came to disturb him. No, he had refused to take any of them, he knew they had administered him some medicine while in observation the day before and the uncomfortable brume it left behind still made his mind cloudy and his mouth cottony. Duncan rubbed his beard with one hand, awkwardly.

There was still one viable option to treat his migraines, though, only the remedy seemed shameful in comparison to the ailing, and it took him a little more courage to indulge in it just yet, it was a whisper dangling in his mind. It had the shape and form of his shoulder devil.

Back when he hadn't fallen in disgrace yet and his name bore prestige over infamy, Duncan Shepherd had been a busy man. He had been over a decade. He hadn't really enjoyed his adolescence like most of his peers, he had known of heavy office work since he was a freshman and learned terms most people only became acquaintances with during their adulthood. The world of adults had always been his to witness, and amongst all of these quarrels and double-crossing and foul plays, Duncan came to find out every great man around him had a way to unravel. A way to wind up. Some chose to drink, some chose smokes.

Duncan hadn't really thought appropriate it to come into the office reeking of tobacco and rum, so he went for a somewhat healthier option that, if anything, clung to his body the sweet smell of perfume.

When it came to his anger, his stress and his migraines, Duncan had always turned to sex to find relief. Casual encounters, most of all, he hadn't been much of a relationship man after prep school; the love spat he'd been unwillingly tangled into while in college after one of his friends mistakenly fell for him and made a tragedy out of it was more than enough for him to keep his distance. But between essays due and a part-time job at Shepherd Unlimited Duncan developed a strong taste—not to use the word ‘obsession’ lightly—for fucking. And he went at it like a beast in heat. Pressing some preppy redhead he had met on his studying group against the bookshelves in the library, using his hand as a makeshift gag; bending that cute surfer intern at Shepherd Unlimited over his desk during lunch break— _James_ , he thinks he was called—fucking messily into his fist in his office's bathroom after a particularly stressful conference, watching some crude and disgusting porn from his cellphone screen. The kink terminology was foreign even for some of the most experienced.

He had also paid both men and women in the past for the pleasure of their company. The whole ordeal was, if you will, experimental. His uncle had once made a comment on his own escapades; Duncan had kept himself from agreeing and telling him paying someone to tolerate him would be the only way he would get any pussy. The point is that, in some primitive and unbecoming arrangement they had made in the hopes of easing their tension and—gag inducer—bond as men, Bill had taken him to one of the finest clubs in DC and drank cognac while a flock of long-legged, cherry smelling girls joined them at the table for a drink and a talk. He was twenty-two at the time, but Duncan wasn't stupid.

Judging by the look of interest in his uncle's face that peeked out from behind the smoke of his cigar, it was more than orchestrated by him. And each of the ladies would go home with their hands full of hundred dollar bills whether they got with Duncan or not. By the end of the night he did sneak into a small room at the club with one of them;, he remembers her, even if her name is nothing but a scratch of static inside of his mind and his memory failed him, he could recall she had long flaxen hair and the face of a dolly that could almost trick you into thinking she was innocent. Once she turned the lock, she was anything but.

That was his type, honestly. Gentle and outwardly untarnished, with big ingenuous eyes and reddened cheeks, but rotten on the inside.

In his current situation, it had saddened him how not even the memory could excite him, how in the twelve months he had spent at Airway Heights so far he had been stripped from his identity to the point he wasn't even in the mood to jerk himself off. He thought himself to be unfeeling, at a point, that's exactly what made the situation at hand this awkward.

“It is a great step forward to be able to talk about this with a little more ease, Duncan.” Mallory encouraged him, letting him know the worst part of their session was over. He swallowed hard, and stretched the corners of his mouth just slightly at the recognition, “Like I said, bottling all these things up, forcing yourself to stay in that dark place, it will bring you nothing but trouble. You have to dispose of it, and handle your own pain with respect and with care, for it's you the one that's gonna have to live with it.”  
  
The way she looked at him almost seemed as though she was proud of his shaky baby steps, but it filled him with excitement, all the same. To get her approval, as he came to know, was much more gratifying than making some snarky remark or vexing her as he had, the day before.

And she was so sweet.

Duncan couldn't keep his mind off of it. How the double chain of tiny silver stars fenced her pale throat so gracefully, how her hair tried and failed to stay in place in that updo despite the lack of breeze.

“I…” he stammered “I'm trying.”

“Trying is good,” she agreed, fumbling with her papers and pens while intermittently looking up at him “We never stop trying. That's part of our nature. We keep on trying, sometimes even the silliest things we know we cannot change. Just because we keep on hoping for a different outcome.”

“Should I keep trying?” he blurted, suddenly.

Mallory frowned, “Of course you should! Why shouldn't you?”

“I was just thinking about…” the confession fell heavy from his lips, but it was a piece of he had to voice out in order to fix it, at least that's what he liked to think “…How shortly before my arrest my uncle and I had a fight that blew way out of proportion. And he told me I was about as useful as a bunch of broken glass.”

Her wide hazel eyes were glazed over. First in understanding, second in—he hoped not—pity. That's when she left him completely perplexed when she tilted her head just slightly and reached forward to take his hand in hers. “I can assure you, Duncan, you're not.”

And Duncan wished to have something clever to say back, but he was far too frozen to come up with anything. So she withdrew her hand, and he began to miss it; if well the touch had been fleeting, it was comforting. Her hands were much warmer than when she handed him his coffee the day before when the touch of her made him feel as though he dipped his hands in snow.

“Thank you, Doctor Howell,” he said with a sigh.

She seemed pleased with his response, so she let him be.

Mallory went on to talk about something else, something encouraging, but Duncan paid little attention to it. Every time she glanced down, every time she busied herself with something he took the opportunity to look her over, to try and pry into what lied under her cloak and profession. It was the woman, not just the doctor, who intrigued him. With her mellow figures of speech and her overly yet tastefully decorated office, with that mix of all seasons scattered on her. His breathing was short and heavy, waving through his chest and coming out his nose in silent short puffs.

It wasn't just the fact he had spent a year without being that close to a woman, he had to cut the bullshit, Mallory was beautiful. Simple as that.

He thought of himself back when he was a free man and could get anything and anyone he wanted, of how their meeting would have been he had met her elsewhere. Perhaps she'd stumbled upon him at some vintage bookshop after being too distracted with her newest acquisition to watch her step, maybe she would have attended one of those charity galas he was forced to go to, maybe she would have ended up being his subordinate at Shepherd Unlimited after she coining a job at HR. Regardless of the scenario, the outcome was always the same.

Those warm, often cold, hands all over him. All to himself.

"…this as an opportunity to figure out whether or not you wish to stay as one of your family's…” she went on, her voice coming from underwater.

He nodded and shook his head no depending on the case, he was barely even listening.

“…or if you want to take a completely different course in your life. ”

His eyes wandered down, they might as well be glued to the ground so he raised no suspicions, and saw through the side of her desk how the hem of her skirt rode up with an accidental movement of her leg. Duncan feasted on the portion of the downy pale skin of her thighs coming out directly in front of his line vision. With no way to stop it, the sight caused his breath to hitch and the skin of his face grew impossibly warmer.

“I, um, yes. You're right, Doctor.”

He was standing directly in front of the sunbeams that oozed from her, the scent of her perfume soaked up in the air twice more than before. Duncan thought of her, of the summer in her hair, the autumn in her eyes, the spring from her lips and the cold winter trapped inside her hands. It mortified him, but despite all his wishes to stop it he felt a rush of blood course through his body and pool in his cock. She straightened up when she stretched herself and the small sound that escaped her lips caused his neglected girth to twitch, beginning to press tighter against his trousers.

Duncan had never been a religious man, but he surprised himself turning to the word of the Lord and reciting it mentally with a baffling precision.

**_«Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyes…»_**

Mallory was calmed and unknowing, but Duncan was anchored to his seat by the tent in his pants. Suddenly the image of her holding on for dear life onto the mahogany of his old bed flooded his thoughts, her small rounded tits bouncing harshly with each of his thrusts, her waist painted in blooming bruises with the shape of his fingertips and her soft firm legs stretched open for his taking. He thought of the wetness and warmth that awaited him between them, of her shrieks and screams of pain and pleasure intertwined as he claimed her as roughly as he possibly could. God, the vision was enough for him to cautiously pull at the fabric that confined his cock and clench his jaw tightly at the feeling of his fingers brushing his engorged head, hoping his precum wouldn't filter through the layers of fabric.

What would she think if she knew of his little game? Would she be disgusted, would it excite her? He imagined if the case was the latter, how he would palm himself while she pushed her chair against the wall and threw her legs over each arm of it for him to see. Her little mouth parting in ecstasy and his fist now pumping his freed length up and down at the rhythm he watched her tiny fingers disappear into her heat. It'd be slick, and obscene, how the sound of wetness coating skin would fill the air and the smell of arousal intoxicated each other.

He'd suck her fingers clean, she'd lick the mess off of his hands.

It took him a while and all his strengths to soften again, he would have liked it better if he spent himself all over his own stomach, feel the thick hot spurs hitting his skin and collecting them later on his tongue to taste himself. But a straight face and a faint goodbye would do, when left her office that afternoon he addressed to her with the upmost care; both decided and confused over his own longings.

And that night, after over a year, he thanked the privacy of his plain metallic door when finally masturbated for the first time in a long time. He had gotten used to those unfortunate instances in which he released during his sleep, his balls pained and heavy by the amount of cum they'd been collecting yet his cock refused to spill out due to his lack of desire over anyone or anything.

He'd teased his long outline using the littlest bit of the tip of his fingers imagining they were hers, the thought of her soft asscheeks spreading in front of him and quaking under every slap of his hands helping grow larger. He'd wrapped his fingers around himself over the fabric and rubbed himself insistently, a low breathy groan escaping at the sight of a faint dark stain of precum spreading on his pants.

He thought of her little mouth, how he'd tap her outstretched tongue with the head of his cock before bringing her closer to rub himself possessively all over her face, his arousal making her soft skin glisten. And when he spat a thick wad of saliva onto his hand and began to work it up and down his shaft at a mad pace, he had to bite his fist in order not to alert the guards with a particularly loud grunt.

The ache wasn't gone even long after nutting. It was _her_ he needed.

It was pointless to try and think what she would be doing, for he knew she must have been wrapped in sheets in the safety of her home, devoid of any care. She would have warm fresh tea over tap water before bed, she would have a hot bath instead of a cold communal shower waiting for her in the morning. Duncan found himself, then, pondering about what she did and who she was outside that place.

Did she live in a building, did she live in a suburb? Did she have any flowers in her yard, did she have any pets? Any friends? Perhaps she was also married to an accountant or a teacher, she had the look of it; go figure, for all he knew she could perfectly be someone's mother. Well, there was, indeed, something very sweet and nurturing about her. Maybe she did have kids of her own; a boy with chubby cheeks and curly hair, and a girl with freckles and her mother's impossibly long lashes.

The thought disgusted him, to think she was unreachable for him in every aspect of the word. It was already bad enough to meet her now, every Wednesday as they agreed, in her office with Duncan dressed in that hideous crisp uniform and his hands cuffed in front of him.

Insanity, that's what it was, but the sheer and forceful impulse of making the most of it took over him. Duncan would try and get to know her better every week, careful of not scaring her off or—worst case scenario —get put in solitary for harassing a member of the prison's staff.

Duncan turned to his side on his double mattress bed (his somewhat acceptable bedding a gift from his mother after he complained of back pains two months into his conviction) and curled up to his pillow foolishly wishing for thin limbs and a mane of brown and gilded strands to materialize into his arms. If he closed his eyes he could even smell the white roses and jasmine lingering in the air around him. With his eyes closed, it was almost enough.

Almost, but not quite.

So, in the dead of night with nothing but his hope to keep him company, Duncan thought to court Mallory Howell wouldn't be the worst of things. He could always play it out as a joke, hide back into his shell and leave her alone in hers; but he wouldn't forgive himself for not trying, at the very least.

After all, it'd been a while since his eyes had seen a hint of spring.

Countless acknowledgments and faces were plastered over the tacky blue walls of Dr. Christensen's office. Some of the faces she couldn't recognize must have been members of the staff long before she began to work there. Mallory furrowed her brow as she examined them, partly because a part of her kept thinking about these people and the lives they lived outside of Airway Heights; partly because she thought of her own life back in those days, and all that had changed ever since.

Daniel, however, brought her rudely out of those thoughts.

“I will be transparent with you, Mallory. Annette had given me the task of looking after Duncan in exchange of a reasonable amount; the thing is, I don't have that time nor do I have the energy to deal with this kind of men, anymore. You, however, have the energy and the fresh outlook I don't have. You can deal with him much better than I ever could.”

Mallory clung onto the mug her boss had given her out of pity.

“I don't want any of that money,” she stated before he could offer.

“Why wouldn't you?” he asked in clear confusion.

“Because it's wrong, Daniel.” she reprimanded.

Mallory placed her mug carefully on the table and, in a sudden burst of boldness, made her way towards his door. She could feel the man biting at her heels, but she minded it little.

“Mallory—”

“How would you feel—” she asked him, bitterly “—if I came to you and I proposed to you something highly inappropriate, as casually as if I asked you if you wanted to go for a beer after work? How would you feel if you found out I was doing something illegal and unprofessional at my place of work, just because it was for my own benefit?”

He raised his hands as to simmer her down, it was ineffective.

“I know what this looks like—”

“I'm not taking a dime for this, Daniel. I'm doing my job, that's it. I am not going to lie for you or provide him with any sort of drugs for you, I'm not going to cross any lines just because Annette fucking Shepherd thinks it easier than taking care of her own son.”

“Just… Just treat him, Mallory.” he begged her as she reached the doorknob, “Treat him the best you can and report everything back to me.”

Mallory sighed heavily and gave him a look that could only be described as hostile. The short woman took a step forward, made sure she was getting his expressed attention when she spoke, much to her surprise, condescendingly so.

“I don't know if you've noticed, Daniel,” she dragged “but that's what my job consists of.”

_After that, he said very little. That conversation in the months to come, as she will come to find out, would be the greatest of ironies…_


	6. Objects of Detachment, Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, there is a special someone (spoiler alert: Nuke) I would like to thank for her guidance and inspiration as she was her who first noticed some details in my work that could fit several kinds of psychoanalysis and (ultimately) introduced me to the work and theories of Jacques Lacan. This past month I’ve been reading and studying a bit about his theory (partly why this update has taken so much) and even though I am far from well-versed if there’s something I love is how writing can take us elsewhere and how to teach us new stuff we never thought of learning before. For that I thank you, Nuke, you really brought something out from my fic I would have never noticed myself.
> 
> That being said, I am trying to study a little more what it exactly is, Mallory’s psyche, so this chapter will rotate around her and several other aspects of her everyday life I thought timely and proper. I hope you guys enjoy this, I surely am enjoying getting to know my baby better.
> 
> As a closure, I would like to address my readers from my first multichapter Millory fic, The Unlucky. Perhaps the story has been somewhat abandoned, at the time, I would like to let you know I’ve grown and learned a lot ever since I started writing it, and there are certain aspects of the story I cannot really relate to anymore; the story lacks depth, the characters feel odd to me, the pace is weird. I love that fanfiction to death, and I am hoping to maybe re-release it in a future with a clearer outlook. This fic, in particular, has come to show me that, and for that, I am so very grateful.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I did.
> 
> PS: By the way, at the beginning of this chapter a character refers to a beautiful song that caused them to grow a little melancholic; that song is Landslide by Fleetwood Mac. The reason why I found it as important is that the moment I was writing that very piece of the chapter I was holding onto someone’s hand and (quite frankly) having a really rough night. I came to ask myself many questions, I felt saddened and lost and remembering the story behind it I found it appropriate. The fun part, fun to call it something, is that same day I had gone with my brother to a local tattoo parlor just out of sheer curiosity.
> 
> The next day I got Landslide written on my inner left wrist, as a homage to a mirror self and a symbolic state of mind in which I found myself back when I was sixteen, six years ago. I came back to the surface and compared myself to that person, today I feel like the Lacanian theory has been following me much longer than I initially suspected.
> 
> Perhaps Oscar was wrong, perhaps to conceal the artist is not the real aim of art.

And so she caught herself unaware, mid-thought, stirring the sugar at the bottom of her iced tea and staring at the small cubes of ice spinning round and round, like those teacup attractions of those rundown carnivals they put up once a year back home. 

She, also, was spinning; spinning away from the countability papers waiting on her desk, spinning out of that place and out of that town so fast and so strongly the hot sweetened air of her hometown wrapped around her, almost like an embrace, catching her safe and sound just a second before the collision. The face that stared back at her from the ambery surface of her drink looked, if anything, jaded. Those marks the years had etched on her skin reminded her not only it was autumn, but it was also—very much so—late.

That town was not that far away, but the home was not there any more now, was it?

It was not like Tammie Thatcher was much of a sentimentalist, it was only that song that was playing—so soft, so pretty—took her back to days where she wore flower patterned skirts instead of polyester, and what she stirred was the spinning cup's wheel and not her tea. 

Her cozy three-bedroom Lincoln Heights apartment was one of the tidiest in her entire apartment complex, located on the second floor with a perfect view of the short mown grass of the entrance facing the ice spotted road. It was yellow, yellow was the only word fitting of it; you felt its warmth in the raspy wallpaper with the flowers imprinted onto the grooves and bumps on the wall, you could smell in that odd mixture of musk, oranges, naphthalene, and dust in the air, you could touch it on the surface of the refrigerator and the linoleum tiles of the kitchen floor.

Yellow, like a firefly gone astray trying to keep its light shining on.

Tammie was a hardworking woman, well into her fifties, taking care of a little son and an older daughter. Little was known of Laurie, the daughter, anymore. Ms. Merryweather from the first floor said she'd moved to Montana to work in a farm with her uncle, Mr. Lawson from the hardware store said she'd gone to Aspen to work as a ski instructor—the circumstances of her fleeing were for most an unsolved mystery, but Tammie was content with knowing her daughter had dreams bigger than that small, dusty, lovely yellow apartment; those, she respected.

After all, her shifts as a cashier at a nearby supermarket were unforgiving, to sit up there without moving for hours was enough of a martyrdom; she'd seen them, also, all those people lining up by self-checkout queue, and sighed at the wish of, at least, feeling useful. Things were different twenty years ago when she'd tended to her customers with cheerfulness and care, looking down at those who had children and mentioning the little daughter that waited for her at home.

She was beautiful, she had said. With her corn-colored hair, subtle cheek dimples and big brown eyes. A stunner, and so clever! People had but agreed. Tammie missed those conversations, nowadays she was too tired to even try it, and the corn-haired girl was waiting no more.

“Nicholas, dinner!” she called out, her own voice hoarse and distant like the echo of a stone falling off a cliff. The lack of hurried little steps urged her to insist “Come eat, Nicholas, 'fore it gets cold.”

“Coming, ma.” the whistley voice replied.

Her blues were momentarily buried in a garden of cold soil, stoic and unrelenting waiting for the next opportunity to sneak up on her—for now, all was good. At least it always was whenever she fixed her own murky brown gaze onto those wide, deep-set eyes of his that always bore perplexity whether or not there was something to be surprised by.

For a moment she pondered, whether or not she failed to see life was just that surprising.

“Made ya nuggets, pup. And iced tea, your favorite.”

Nicholas climbed onto his chair as clumsily as a child his age would, his chubby hands were gaining precision and his way to hold his—plastic, as a precaution—fork in his hand was not so clumsily anymore.

“Iced tea is _ Laurie's _ favorite,” he corrected while munching on one of his animal-shaped pieces of meat; which strangely enough had gators, and lions, and dogs, but no chickens “I like Dr. Pepper!”

His mother laughed, putting away the baking trail.

“Did ya like the nuggets, at least?” Nicholas teasingly shook his head no, she raised her brow “Oh, really? Can I have one, then? Because if you didn't like'em, I guess you'll have to share'em!”

“No, no!” he shrieked, bursting into laughter and shielding his plate from Tammie's prying hands “I liked them, I swear!”

“Well, you betta!” 

Her son shot her a little devilish look, and it amazed her to see whereas her Nicky was the embodiment of mischief, her  _ Lo _ was bashfulness turned to woman. However far away, God only knew how much she loved her.

“Are we giving Miss Mallory food tonight, ma?”

Tammie looked at him from across the kitchen, where she neatly packed some nuggets and canned veggies in salad inside a plastic hermetic box, she laughed “ _ I _ am going upstairs to give Mallory some food.” her son frowned, shrinking into his seat “ _ You _ are staying here.”

“But you said last time that if I did behave I could come with you again and talk to Miss Mallory about my dinosaurs…” woe be him with his knitted brow and that, almost adult, misconception over his mother's terms and conditions.

After all, her Nicki was too young to understand some things yet, and those merry things mothers told their kids to keep them calm when it's eight in the evening and they just wanted to distract their kids enough to let them wrap a conversation and go home, were some of them.

“Mallory has been working nonstop this week, Nicholas, poor thing must be worn to the bone!” she explained, shutting the stubborn lid with a bit difficulty and nearly losing one acrylic nail in the process “I'm just dropping this off, asking her ‘bout her night, and be right out. You always know how enthusiastic you get, honey, you might overwhelm her.”

“Does she still work with the bad guys, ma?” 

“Yes, honey, she still works there.” she sighed, it ached her almost to look back at his furrowed brow; bearing too much concern for a boy his age. 

Nicholas, like most kids, thought the idea of working at a prison scary and unrealistic. Mallory had to sit him down and assure him nothing bad would happen to her, but he had taken the liberty of eavesdropping what his mother was watching the other day—a movie, or was it a show, about prisons—and what he found had appalled him.

Ma would be furious if she found out what he heard, so he kept the secret from her.

His defeat came in the form of shoulders slumped and arms crossed over his chest, Tammie waited for a protest of some sort, but after sheepishly eyeing him for a moment or two he went back to dip another tiny fried elephant in a pool of ketchup and chew grumpily. Of course, he wouldn't bug her much, her Nicki was a good kid. 

“Next time it'll be, pup. When she's not too tired,” she promised and shot him a wink.

  
  
  


Some might call her crazy. She didn't give a shit, she was a woman on a mission.

The exhilarating beat of a drum and the steady riff of a guitar pierced through the air and jumped from the walls setting the mood for the madness taking place at the premises. Joan Jett's  _ Bad Reputation _ reverberated in a sort of nostalgic rendition to Mallory's yesteryears, taking her way back to a rebellious stage in which her eye makeup was always smeared and a freshly uneven fringe covered her right eye like a curtain; she shouldn't have used those crafts scissors...

…If she focused enough she could feel the dull sweet taste of those Avon lip glosses her mother bought her, mixed with the smell of those Harajuku perfumes she used to collect. See the flakes of chipped nail polish gathering on the floor by her desk.

On her dining table were several items: newspaper articles, colored pins, photographs, and a big ball of red string. It resembled only corny police dramas and that particular scene from _ P.S: I Love You _ , in which Hilary Swank suffers from an epiphany—rather a meltdown—while searching for a new career path after becoming a widow. Only this time, it wasn't Gerard Butler being mourned, and the closest thing they had to have one of them become a famous shoemaker was to give Duncan the task of polishing shoes in jail. It was hilarious, though, considering they didn’t wear dress shoes in prison anymore. He would have to scrub plain running shoes, then.

Before she could chuckle at the thought—toying with the glossy paper of a printed picture in her hand—the suspicious demeanor of her dog caused Mallory to put it back on the table once again, and call for her from over the music.

“Daisy, Daisy open your mouth!” she ordered, frantically.

But the black labrador was not caving. Mallory had to put up a fight and chase after her dog around the small dining room area of her Lincoln Heights apartment. Eventually she handed her, pulling her jaw open with care until she caught a glimpse of a little something resting between her teeth and her tongue—it looked green and plastic—wincing at the feeling of the animal's heavy, hot breath and slimy saliva gathering on her fingers and coating her hand. Disgusting, but she wasn't going to risk her dog's health over a couple moments of disgust.

She wouldn't have been able to last at a prison if she was easily disgusted or unnerved, anyway. Every day was shock therapy.

“Here, here. Gimme that, gimme that. That's it.”

There it was, the green thing. Slimy so, there it was.

Upon inspection, Mallory came to find Daisy had been slobbering over a prick-less cork board pin. The pricks of those were tough ones to break apart from the plastic, so she could only hope Daisy hadn't somehow managed to swallow the pointy end of the pin; she would feed her bread just in case so it—had she swallowed the thing—got covered in it, for Daisy's safety. 

“Silly girl! That thing could have hurt you, you know?" She chastised.

Mallory could only wonder what kind of formless, colorful thoughts came through the overactive mind of a dog; because she did believe they could think as well as they could feel. Staring deep into those soulful dark eyes she found nothing but kindness and a clear display of wellness that brought comfort to her sudden preoccupation.

Daisy leaned into the touch of her hand, the breathless gasps from the tug of war gave her a gesture alike a tired smile. Mallory pulled her into a hug scratching lightly at the black hair behind her head, all was good.

“Stop grabbing shit from the floor!” she urged her, her voice sweet.

After tugging gently at Daisy's ears, Mallory patted her back and got back to business, thanking little the sudden rush of adrenaline. 

Having washed her hands and fed Daisy the last three pieces of white bread she had—much to the dog's enjoyment—Mallory glanced back at the articles and pictures scattered over her table. Words, places, faces, they were all staring her down; consuming her, as though they knew she was doing something vile. She could only hope otherwise. 

Before a so-called personal awakening caused her to apply for psychiatry in college on the last minute, her childhood and adolescence dream had actually been becoming an investigative journalist; to work for an illustrious magazine like Times or National Geographic. Wherever she could make use of her curious and dissatisfied nature. Life had proven to her that her abilities were required elsewhere, but every now and then she indulged in what she called little scientifical pleasures, some that other people would call “snooping around”.

She had her nails drumming on polished wood like the hooves of a horse to the race, her lips skeptically puckered up. Maybe they were right, she thought, maybe she  _ was _ snooping around.

The board was clean, in a way so was her conscience. She could still put it all away and pretend it didn't happen, put a movie on and get some popcorn; do whatever normal people did on a late Friday afternoon. It was not like she didn't consider it, she considered it with each tap of her fingers on the wood, with each beat of the drums blasting inside her house, with every faint whistle inside her ear after a particularly loud note. She could still put it all away, she really could.

Yet again, any other mundane activity now seemed dull in comparison.

The subject of study was freshly cut and ready to be exposed to the very centre of the board, from where she would begin. Again, Mallory brought herself to pick the picture up and frame it with red pins against the cork, gazing at it nervously as though the pictures would start to talk. 

Duncan Edward Shepherd.

Born on November 17th, 1990, to Frederick Hastings and Annette Shepherd in Raleigh, North Carolina. 

The picture she had found had been from a news outlet that had covered the  _ Shepherdgate  _ last year's August, while Duncan was still being trialed for treason. It was, according to the caption, from an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art earlier that year, close to the Heavenly Bodies themed Gala. It'd be infantile and almost cynical to act as if the picture itself wasn't worthy of the opulent showing. Mallory caught herself staring, the action alone outrageous enough to make a well-known warmth creep under her cheeks. 

But how couldn’t she stare?

The image before her was completely alien from anything she ever related to Duncan Shepherd ever since she met him, here he still carried the glow of power and entitlement soaked into the rosiness and freshness of his skin; three quarters of his face facing away from the camera with every line and every pore of it on full display under the incandescent lights of the flashes, his hair was slicked back and there was a faint hint of a smile raising the corners of his lips. Insouciant, cruel, careless, that’s how he looked. Maybe it was ought to be some sort of ironic omen to his ill fate, to see him at the very cusp right before his fall; it wasn’t just the justice or lack thereof behind it what held her down under some sort of spell. It was just  _ Duncan. _

Like a moth to a flame, she got closer to his photograph, her eyes narrowed as though they urged to capture every detail on the soft, cold surface. Would it feel like him, if she reached forward? Would some crooked part of her brain trick her into thinking it was skin and stubble what she was feeling, not just paper? Mallory stopped herself once she realized just how close she was to him—his picture, anyway—and only a few seconds later she got to tell a certain thud apart from the music playing, someone was knocking on her door.

Coming out of her reverie, she approached the entrance somewhat cowardly.

What time was it, anyway? Seven, eight maybe? Mallory hadn’t even been bothered to draw her curtains in hours, and it wasn’t like she was paying much attention to anything but the corkboard pressed to her wall. 

She gasped,  _ the corkboard. _

Childish, sure, but necessary, Mallory ducked slightly and pressed herself to the door to make sure her little artwork was safely tucked away from any curious eyes. Alright, all good.

When she opened the door, the image that came to her direct line of vision was enough confirmation of her tendency to lose track of time. One of her neighbors, Mrs. Tamara, was standing comfortably outside her door with a plastic box in hand which usually meant Mallory had unconsciously skipped dinner and she was coming to her rescue before weakness caused her to work at half her usual pace. A bashful smile drew itself on her lips, and Mallory took a step forward, holding lightly onto her door frame.

“I hope this is not your way to file for a noise complaint,” she joked.

Tamara looked her over, knowingly, with a little grin toying on her lips.

“Nah, I’m not here to file for a complaint,” she laughed “I’m just here to make sure you ate.”

_ That smells good,  _ she thought. It had become a bit of a tradition between them. To exchange a little talk and a little food whenever they could; Tamara, or Tammie as she begged Mallory to call her, would ask her about her job at Airway Heights and Mallory would reply as vaguely but politely as possible. Sometimes she came over with her son, who was incredibly young and incredibly curious and made Mallory feel like less of a hermit. 

“Thank you, you didn’t need to.”

Usually what followed was a little tug of war between both of them which often consisted in Tammie asking her if she had already eaten and Mallory shyly admitting she hadn’t cooked anything yet and that would probably settle for a sandwich, or a salad, to which Tammie would reply completely flabbergasted, going off about how that wasn’t a proper dinner (let alone for a working woman like her). This time was no exception, Mallory hadn’t been seen by anyone in the last two weeks and neighbors were starting to grow a little worried about her. Despite the clear lack of privacy, Mallory had to admit it felt nice for a change, to be taken care of.

At least being taken care of as much as one could be by those she only ran into while rushing to the elevator and shared parking lot spots with. 

“I baked some nuggets earlier today, I just took them out the box and tossed them in the oven like pizza rolls,” she croaked, laughing a little at her own dismissive joke “Anyway, I thought maybe you would appreciate it, since I know once you get into your work zone is pretty frickin’ hard to getcha out.”

“They smell great, Tammie, thanks! You really didn’t need to, though, I was gonna fix myself something as soon as I finished.”

“Of course you were.” the older woman taunted, chuckling.

“How’s Nicki, by the way?”

“He’s well, downstairs,” Tammie sighed “he wanted to come up with me but I told him you were not in the mood to talk about dinosaurs tonight, especially since we hadn’t seen you in days! Where have you been, anyway?”

Mallory felt her hands grow sweaty, and brushed the moist skin against the grey fabric of her sweatpants, shrugging her shoulders almost nonchalantly. It was not like she could tell her she had been more than preoccupied with a patient that was probably known by the entire building. The entire building? Now that was preposterous. The entire fucking country.

“At work, really. It’s been a crazy couple of days down there and the whole thing with the early snow cut us short of staff, it’s felt like over time even if I hadn’t spent more time than I usually do.” Mallory laughed dryly. 

Her countenance was fogged over with clear signs of exhaustion, from the dark circles under her eyes to the somewhat waxy appearance of her skin enhanced by the unhealthy-looking glow of the fluorescent light bulb from the hallway, stealing away those reddish tones of hers. When it came to Mallory there was always an odd ball of warmth surrounding her, shielding her. It didn’t matter how pale and cold the space around her was, her safe space, her personal bubble was always drenched in warm hues. 

Red and amber, like the last little beam of a dying sun. 

“You do look like you could use some rest, kid” Tammie condoned, “Are you sure you don’t need anything else? Some tea, some medicine, anything?”

“Oh, no! I’m fine, I’m really fine! Just tired.”

Mallory glanced down, embarrassed.

“Well, if you need anything” that anything was stressed, “you know where to find me.”

“Thank you, Tammie.”

“You got my number, too,” she reminded her, brushing her own arms over her thin beige cardigan; the snow, it had gotten the best of them and the cold weather was as dry as it was ruthless. Any lesser folk would have thought it was early January “So don’t hesitate in giving me a call.”

In all honesty, Mallory did not know what to say. All of this attention was so new and so unexpected she felt mildly inadequate; her skin felt oddly warm despite facing the nightly breeze face first, her feet seemed not to find a spot to rest on, it simply felt as though she needed to crawl in her skin, all the same, to know someone was there and someone was caring had been something she yearned for, tirelessly. She glanced down at her thin cotton cropped top and fought the urge to pull at the hem of it, nodding off as she stared at her feet.

Why, no, she didn’t know what to say. Thankfully Tammie did. 

“Y’know, I finally watched Escape at Dannemora” 

Mallory pressed her side to her door frame, unconsciously holding her box of food against her chest “Really? How did you like it?” 

“I liked it very much, actually…” Tammie knitted her brows tightly, her wrinkled hands finding their way to her own waist and rustling soundly when all her gilded bracelets clinked against one another “...But I cannot wrap my head around why Patricia Arquette’s character would sleep with those inmates and help them escape, and all!”

“It’s based on a true story, too. So that means a woman actually did it.” Mallory teased, raising her eyebrows and adopting a cheerer tone, mostly to see Tammie’s reaction.

She crossed herself in reply, earning a chuckle from the younger woman. 

“Yeah, yeah, I know!” she nagged, closing her eyes and raising her hand in clear surrender as who doesn’t want to hear any more of it, but still she continued to talk about it much to Mallory’s amusement “I heard the New York Times called that woman, Tillie, the  _ Shaw-skank. _ ”

Tammie did an almost dramatic pause a though she wanted to calibrate Mallory’s reaction, and she could only laugh at such occurrence However mean her thoughts happened to be, the part of her that was tattletale and self-righteous delighted itself in that conversation at hand.

Mallory shrugged her shoulders in faux innocence.

“Well, if it walks like a duck...”   
  


“Why do you think she did it?” Tammie pondered after a moment.

“I don’t know,” she admitted “I guess she wanted the excitement of engaging in something illegal. From what I take this woman was trapped in an emotionless life, it was easy for her to find an escape in that world, in those people. Perhaps…” Mallory trailed off, staring at the distance, then back at Tammie’s eyes “...she found the excitement and motivation she needed to keep herself alive, in a way.” 

Tammie seemed to think about it for a few moments, the look on her face bewildered.

“Of course it’s mostly sensationalized to keep the audience on the edge of their seat.” Mallory urged to add, just as a small disclaimer (and an act of cowardice, for she was not one to show her true thoughts for longer than a couple of seconds) “It’s probably blown way out of proportion.” 

“Yeah, probably.” she agreed and laughed coarsely.

Mallory narrowed her eyes at her, “You sound kinda tired yourself,” she acknowledged. 

“It was a long day,” she breathed out, “I feel like I need a twenty-hour nap, the lines today were longer than ever and I got this back pain that, ugh,” the woman groaned holding onto her lower back like an expecting mother in the middle of a contraction, her voice suddenly felt more and more distant “I wanted to go on my break and stretch my legs a little, but we were short on cashiers today and…”

Easy as it came, it went. Mallory’s eyes were fixed on Tammie’s, but inwardly had mind had long since exited from the conversation, she could no longer even describe her voice as static; it was simply gone, like those moments between a state of awakeness and slumber where she could suddenly lose her grasp on the music she had been listening to, as though the signal came in and out intermittently and each time quieter. 

Her mind had drifted far away from limited television series and back pains, it had floated lazily to a place that perhaps was all but pretty, but that she found interesting to no end and much worthier of staying at than any stupid small talk. Something twisted inside, and she couldn’t stop it. 

It felt wrong to admit it, Mallory bit her lip and the thought and awkwardly shifted her arms around her struggling to find a comfortable position, but she was more than eager to end that conversation and resume the task she had at hand before being interrupted. Tammie could notice something shifted inside her; something looked more alert, more alive, a small switch had flicked, and her niveous skin even regained a little color at the cheeks, as some outrageous thought had taken over her mind.

Funnily enough, in between “uh’s” and “yeah’s” she got herself wondering, only wondering, if maybe her neighbor had found a boyfriend and that’s why she was so distracted. Maybe she had stopped by her apartment while she had some company—that was a possibility, although the security guard had told her an hour prior to their meet that Mallory had arrived  _ alone _ , and that she was probably working—and caused her to dissimulate some romantic scene that had taken place a heartbeat before her knock. Heavens! Could that be it? Tammie had to hide her own excitement, even if it left a bittersweet aftertaste, having thought of her of lonesome and celibate; not like the poor girl had to follow that old fashioned criteria, she was bordering her thirties, the girl could do whatever she wanted. It was just she looked so… innocent.

It offended her a bit to think she wouldn’t tell her about some mysterious wooer if there was any.

“...So this freaking weather got’em sick right before he started school!” the older woman resumed, she was laughing, slapping her palms to the sides of her thighs “I took him to the doctor’s and all and he said he caught the bug and I had nothing to worry about. I was worried maybe he had caught that dengue fever or somethin’, and that he would start bleeding from his gums like I’d seen in those reports but he reminded me that was tropical disease, and mosquitoes weren’t precisely fond of the Washington weather.” 

“My, that sucks.” what really sucked, though, was she wanted out of the conversation. 

Mallory was too nice to cut it short, unfortunately, and Tammie was bad at picking cues.

“I was gonna bring him up with me tonight, but I didn’t want to put him through this cold at this time of night,” Tammie admitted, “It’s cold as balls out here!”

“But you are in this cold, Tammie!” she nagged, reaching forward unexpectedly to rub her hand against the upper half of her arm, Tammie felt cold indeed “You should get head back before you catch something yourself! Honest, I thank you for the food and all, I will make sure to eat as soon as I go back inside.” 

“Mmkay, mmkay!” she gave up, raising and dropping her hands for what felt like the hundredth time; God, that woman loved to articulate! Most older women did, Mallory admired the energy, at times she felt too stiff herself to even answer “I’m sure you must be working too.”

“Yes, I actually was, I…”

“You have a corkboard and everything! What are you doing in there?” Tammie chimed in.

With widening eyes, Mallory tugged and pulled the door to shield her, coughs, extracurricular activity from Tamara’s gaze. The last thing she wanted was having to explain to a neighbor why that picture was there and why she had a bunch of cut-outs and craft tools on her dining room table. Somewhere around the room was Daisy, protectively barking in the direction of the door, her mother hushing with urgency as her (almost too) friendly neighbor frowned and stiffened, probably after having found her own intromission somewhere between the crooked lines of their conversation.

“Oh, it’s nothing!” she dismissed, juggling between keeping the door half-closed and keeping Daisy from jumping through the space between them, willing to tackle Tammie in an overly excited fond gesture “Just organizing some old cut-outs from a project I did during my internships,” she lied “I was thinking of taking some pictures of it and send them to my old roommate, y’know, for nostalgia’s sake.” 

“Oh, I see…”

“Nothing too exciting,” Mallory chuckled.

Guilty as she was, she then saw Tamara bid her goodbyes with some half heartedness about her that bewildered her as much as it weighed her down; something about the look in her eyes, the dragging movements of her feet made her wonder if maybe she had been rude, or if she simply hadn’t given her what she was looking for. Tamara had always been utmost sweet to her, from the moment she saw her struggling to get her moving boxes to her apartment eight months prior, from that moment on she had served as a guide through the neighborhood and a source of knowledge and relief when Mallory thought herself to be hopeless.

Mallory was going to hell for being so ungrateful, forever fixed in her objects of detachment and swimming somewhere far away from everything she could see and everything she could really touch. Yet another thing she had to work on if she wanted to be on their good graces. Graces of who? She didn’t know. Simply graces. 

Maybe she had been selfish, in a way, despite knowing in her heart of hearts that she wasn’t at any fault, a part of her was gnawing at her very bones convincing she had somehow disappointed her. 

Disappointed her, the sweet old woman who gave her food when it had gotten too late to cook herself; her, who had listened to her incessant rambling in the past and shortened her name into a sweet little  _ Lo _ .

  
  
  


Now, where were we? 

Oh, yes, Duncan. Duncan Edward Shepherd, to be precise—the name rolled off her tongue sweet and laid on thick, like honey. There was something about that name in particular that felt fake and pretentious, the sort of name listed in an auction guest list somewhere in The Hamptons, tattooed onto the paper in a gilded calligraphy. It was a name that evoked interest, a name that denoted authority, a story that carried itself many men before him. All irremediable, all powerful, that was ought to be a bad, terrible combination. 

Whoever Duncan truly was, whoever he happened to be, it had me lessened into a spec of what he was and transformed into an insecure, rugged, almost maniac man who sought after an escape that wouldn’t come and a redemption he wouldn’t be given; the regretful, resentful man she interviewed every Wednesday now had played a role in a play that had disposed of him nearing the second act; despite having lied to him and made him think he had a leading role. 

Well, if what we talked about were stage play metaphors, his role had been watered down into a background character, and now he lied in his thin and stiff bed every night thinking of where he went wrong, wondering if the four years he was facing would be enough to destroy him before he saw daylight again. Rest assured, she was taking it much at heart, she truly was.

“What I’m doing isn’t wrong, really,” she spoke out loud to no one, only Daisy if she happened to be paying enough attention, but lazy and flipped upside down as she was, it was highly unlikely she was truly listening to Mallory’s monologue “I’m just trying to understand him better, you’ll see, there’s something he isn’t telling me and I can’t help him if he isn’t completely honest with me.”

It was fitting, then, to look back at the man pinned at the centre and think of his light-blinded expression was actually a cryptic one, holding a secret from her between his teeth, biting down at it until it dripped with blood. A single question was written in a piece of paper on top of him, the same she had scribbled upside down from where Duncan was, days before, the same she had read over thinking she would, then, find the answers she needed. And so it went.

_ Who is Duncan Shepherd’s father?  _

So far she had three contestants: first, and most obvious, was the late businessman Frederick Hasting, to whom Annette had been married since she was twenty-two until his untimely passing. Next was the late President Francis Underwood, who apparently had an affair with Annette early into his marriage to Claire, and who was rumored to be implicated in many deals the Shepherd conglomerate would see as beneficial, until Claire Underwood herself gave them the axe. And, lastly and most scandalously, was Annette’s older brother, Bill. For years people had been speculating on Bill and Annette’s relationship, claiming Bill had been oddly jealous and possessive over his young sister during their adolescence and his disapproval for her lovers and failed marriages; after Duncan’s arrest and alleged adoption story, it was revealed that Bill was pretty much coparenting with his own sister and it had technically been him who had given him a paternal surname, instead of Frederick, his sister’s husband.

It was odd to think of a sibling relationship in which both had agreed to raise a son as their own under their family’s ideals. Duncan himself had admitted his uncle had never taken any misdemeanor lightly and took on physical and verbal punishments whenever he saw fit. 

In her table lied shot and frame each and every one of them. A man, with silky white hair, small and affable brown eyes, clearly older than Annette by a decade or two and much too kind looking to pose any actual threats. Another one, with an unsettling snarl concealed as a half a smile during presidential press tour with his name and logo printed all over the walls behind him, he was the one of short brown hair and unsettling gaze, one that pierced through you, like a blade. Third was the nearly bedridden countenance of the one who had observed his every step, Mallory’s unexpected favorite contestant, one with hair of the same dark blonde and eyes as blue. Eyes cold blue like a dark ocean’s waves, and blue like his own.

She took a deep breath letting her back clash against her table, looking down at them and debating on which she was supposed to pin first, clockwise or counterclockwise, up, down, left, right. It was impossible now. It was gonna take her a while, and her night surely would be longer than intended, sleepless and unfruitful, but it was a question that demanded an answer, for some godforsaken reason. It was worthy of mention, as well, that Bill, too, had died. Three deaths linked to Duncan and Annette in the last thirteen years, all of Duncan’s three possible fathers.

“Fuck…” she gasped, unsure of where to start, ignoring for a second her ringing phone. 

Mallory wasn’t liking this Mamma Mia sequel. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	7. Objects of Detachment, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know many of us usually loathe face-claims in fanfiction as they take us back to our embarrassing dream-cast and Wattpad days, but I also know many of us are visual beings and we can dwell in the story better if we have an idea of what we’re looking at, so I said fuck it and made one.  
> Dermot Mulroney as Dr. Daniel Christensen.  
> Richard Gere as Frederick Hastings.  
> Susan Sarandon as Evelyn Howell.
> 
> And, well, Stevie Nicks as Tammie Thatcher.

Ever been familiar with the unforgiving sting of tears prickling you eyes? The cold, unrelenting feeling of despair that takes over you, and whispers all kinds of harsh words into your ears etching them onto your brain? They’re awful, definitely, especially when they come from who you expect them the least, especially when they come from someone you’ve done nothing but protecting all these years. That sting, if there was anything worse than that sting she didn’t know it.

Mallory.

Mallory at times tossed and turned in her bed at night, wrapped in cotton and linen, just thinking of it, of the needles sinking slowly into her flesh both freezing and burning, and the thoughts didn’t let her sleep. Sometimes it took hours to mend it, sometimes the pain was still there in the broad light of day, when her eyes blinked uneasy and confused wondering just when it became morning. 

She hated talking about it.

But when Vincent came into her office compulsively pursing and parting his lips speaking of how life had grown meaningless the second his children became someone else’s she couldn’t help but foreseeing that old feeling of despair coming back to mortify her, the entire thing felt like those migraine auras that she often had a day or two before an episode. It was impossible for him to tell, for her as well, but something about his self-pitying nature revolted her; it took her back, way back. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been that much of a great idea to become a therapist if treating certain people with certain conditions was enough to trigger her _ —God, she hated that word! _ What was she, a weapon?—at times it even caused her to wonder if she had become a therapist in her inability to deal with them in the hopes self-awareness and self-medication would do her better.

Funny, that was a figure of speech that had actually been a bitter reality sometime over a decade back; it was odd to even cast a memory, that was a skeleton she had once found in her closet and rather than shove it to the bottom she dressed it in one of her school skirts.

The thing was Mallory hadn’t always been the centered, peaceful person she was now.

Tarnished with the sour aftertastes of frustration and hatred, a younger Mallory had taken on unhealthy coping mechanisms to subsist. She had been wicked, she had been disobedient, she had been reckless; everything she now frowned upon had been her own deeds back when her life was—she dare say—more  _ mundane. _ Perhaps it was awful to say so, but psychiatry had given her some kind of entitlement that if well went silent, poisoned her. 

Try as she may, she could kill her mistakes in cold blood, but some of them just refused to stay buried.

Like smoking marijuana in the backseat of some senior’s van she had met after a football game, for starts. His name had been odd, exotic, it definitely didn’t go along with his ethnicity so she could only guess—and this was confirmed after being invited to a party at his house, judging by the borderline tacky chandeliers and opulent carpets that were already stained with beer, bong water and vomit—that his parents were just pretentious. Odd, ghost of a memory, he hadn’t crossed her mind in so long, but Mallory knew he wasn’t bad, per se, just oblivious to his own privilege and other people’s hardships. She had liked him because his breath always smelled like mint and didn’t seem to care what others thought of him; he’d picked her up that night after the game, lost like a stray puppy rubbing her arms for warmth after her so-called best friend had refused to give her a ride home, and taken her back to her house dropping her off on the porch in one piece just ten minutes past curfew. 

It was so strange to think she could still remember the somewhat blanket-like texture of his seats under her legs and forearms, and the exact form of the crumpled candy wrapper thrown over his dashboard, even every bracelet she ever saw him wear, and the way he worded his texts, and the shape of his cock.

His voice she couldn’t remember.

At times the memory crept through and slipped out the corner of her eye like a yawning tear; she felt no pain, she felt no wetness, she just saw it slip; and Mallory wondered for how long she had been holding it in for. 

He was two years older than her, some would have considered him a whore, and it was not like she knew of him again after he graduated that year and moved to college; he had simply become another memory. She hadn’t been invited to his graduation either, despite being considered his girlfriend at some point in time, his lady best friend had forbidden him from doing so after a fight in particular between him and Mallory over some stupid thing caused the girl’s boyfriend to get into a misunderstanding with him that ended up in fists.

Mallory knew if she spoke the wrong thing she would get him into trouble, but at the time her jealousy over this girl (that’s right, the best friend) had been so great she minded little and flung the arrow. Rumor has it the friend had to do his makeup in order not to show the remnants of his bruises at the graduation ceremony, all because of the insecure fucking sophomore he was dating. One little sentence said in faux dismay and the trigger went off, the shots were fired.

He had broken up with her, still sporting a busted lip, at a diner’s parking lot later that night leaving her in a sobbing mess. Once he had driven off in that same van she knew so well she held onto her arms for warmth again, alone in the dead of night with no one to drop her off this time. 

For the first time in her life she felt unredeemable and dirty, the lonesome scene of tears, cold skin, and white sneakers caused her to think maybe—not maybe,  _ indeed _ —she was a weapon.

This took her back to two things.

The godforsaken sting and this guy she hadn’t thought about in ages.

Both memories came from the same source, the one had interrupted her while she put her case together against her corkboard, nuggets and salad getting cold inside a tupperware tossed next to a cut out picture of the Lincoln Monument. 

“Yeah, Marilyn told me he married his girlfriend from Georgetown ten years ago and had a pair of twins four, five years later. She recognized his name from the newspaper and called me, said the book he wrote is a  _ New York Times best-seller  _ and is probably getting a sequel later this year if he feels inspired enough…” somewhere from the other side of the line, she could hear a cigarette being put out against a wet surface “...he could write whatever he wants, though, he has the editorial stuffed in his front pocket.”

“Wow, I didn’t know that, mom.” she mused, her voice flat.

Evelyn Howell chuckled from the other side of the line, Mallory had her attention fixed to any background noise and found nothing but silence, guessing her mother was sitting alone on the kitchen having a late night smoke and having a glass of wine before bed, her father sound asleep.

“You didn’t?” there was a slight harsh edge to her voice, Mallory noticed, “It was on the  _ Washington Herald  _ earlier this week, you said you read about that Shepherd man’s passing on it. Well, it was on that same day’s print!” 

“Must have missed it.” she whispered. 

Evelyn smacked her lips soundly, the sound gave Mallory the mental image of her dusty pink lipstick spread and smeared somewhat evenly before and after, smacking her lips to spread her makeup had been an almost nervous tick of her mother’s, although sometimes she only did it for the sake of it, for the sake of annoying Mallory a little more. She inclined for the latter, definitely.

“Well, I thought I tell you, I know you two were close back then.” she recalled.

Mallory winced, “For half a second, mom, you know I fucked that up.”

_ Oh, self-deprecation, at what point do you stop being self-awareness and become self-pitying? _

“You were a kid back then, I don’t think it matters now.” 

The woman on the side of the line that was, to say the very least, uncomfortable with the subject of the conversation stood up and angrily removed the lid from the green tupperware Tammie had given her harshly enough to have it pop off and fall to the ground, an ever-hungry Daisy rushing to the source of the smell wagging her tail and licking at it. Mallory drew her off shushing her and waving her hand, before leaning over to retreat it. 

“Yet still you mention it.” Mallory bit back.

“Oh, child, don’t you tell me you’re offended now!” her mother cried, almost mockingly “All I did was make a comment about an acquaintance in common, I didn’t mean to get you all rashy about it.”

A pause and a silence.

“God, you’re so sensitive Mallory.”

Mallory grabbed a nugget and shoved it all in her mouth one sitting, not bothering to swallow before she spoke “No, you’re being gossipy and I’m desisting from following your gossip, that’s all.” she clarified. 

Evelyn uttered some gibberish that sounded like a bunch of dismissive words mashed together Mallory understood little of that until they became clearer “—Just forget I said anything. Forget I said anything, Mallory. Seriously.” 

Next she grabbed a fork, pinching onto peas and pieces of carrot she munched unceremoniously. All bullshit aside, Mallory was eager to put up a fight and get into an argument with her mother, however she didn’t want to give her any reasons to play victim and have Mallory’s father call her an hour later asking her what the matter was and why her mother was crying over the phone call they just had. Maybe some other time, when she was bored, she would go for it. She was too busy and too tired to do so now. 

So she pretended she fell for her manipulation, and let it slip. 

“How’s health? You were complaining of some joint pain last week.”

Her mother made a sound similar to a wounded dog, “ _ Owwww _ , it’s been awful! No matter what cream I use, what meds I take, these pains just won’t go away. I haven’t even had the strength to go to the park with Janine and Marilyn this week!”

“Did you take your vitamins like the doctor said? Have you done exercise?”

“Oh, Mallory, you know how weak I get when I do exercise!” she lamented “I walk on the treadmill a little and I already feel like I’m fainting, then I have to go back home and do laundry, sweep the floor, make the dinner, I’m just too tired to do that now!”

“The doctor said you needed to move those arms and legs if you wanted to feel better.” she reminded her.

“And I do! I do!” Evelyn shouted, surprisingly angry “Try to go and wake up every morning at five and take care of a house for a whole day with no help whatsoever and tell me if that doesn’t tire just like exercise! We can’t all be like you, Mallory, we can’t all get home at seven in the evening and forget about the world while you eat microwave food, while watching the newest episode of  _ The Vampire Diaries _ or some other of those secular shows you watch!”

“That show ended two years ago, mother, what are you even talking about?”

“You know what I mean!” she snapped, most likely furrowing her brow and shaking her head, “I have many more responsibilities than you, I had many more than you have now when I was your age! No wonder why I’m still tired, I had a husband and a kid to tend to, I didn’t have the luxury of sitting around and staring at the walls.”

This time it was Mallory the one responding in a passive aggressive voice, impaling her fork into the last bits of food Tammie had given her and making her way to the kitchen with the empty tupperware in hand. She scoffed, eyebrows raised.

“Yes, mom, I’m  _ sorry _ I don’t have a husband, or babies to tend to.”

“I’m not saying you need a husband or a baby, I’m just comparing our situations”

“Unnecessarily so, as usual.” she chided, her voice was mockingly cheerful. 

Mallory could hear was mother take a deep, loud breath.

“Just take your fucking meds and get on the treadmill, mom.” 

“I’m gonna do something better than that, actually!” Evelyn responded, she sounded so self-sufficient it made Mallory grow suspicious “I’m going skiing, the girls and I are taking a trip to Aspen and I’m gonna do enough exercise to cover an entire year of treadmills and cycling machines.” 

First thing she felt tempted to ask was where she had gotten all the money to use for a skiing vacation from, she was certainly not producing more than her pension and her father (who was still working) definitely wouldn’t spend his savings on a girl’s trip. Mallory dropped the food container inside the sink and jolted up a little when it hit bottom, poor tupperware didn’t have to pay for her anger or the fact she failed miserably to calculate depth.

“You know how to ski?” she wondered.

Evelyn groaned, “Don’t be insolent, Mallory, I’m trying to invite you.”

“To Aspen?” she asked in disbelief, “Who’s paying?” 

“Marilyn. Well, Marilyn’s son, technically, it seems like someone at a hostel owed him a favour and all we have to do is show up there. Is some sort of spiritual retreat. I figure you don’t have enough free time to go to church nowadays so I thought it would be a good idea reintroduce you to faith in a way.” 

“I think I’ll pass, mom,” she admitted, grimly, “I have piles of work to do here and I don’t think they’ll let me have a vacation so soon considering I took two weeks off in August.” 

“They’re exploiting you!” 

“I know, right? Feels just like home.” she bit.

Evelyn groaned, “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, Mallory. And I won’t withdraw my offer, I cannot stand the idea of you all alone in that awful place, and both Marilyn and Janine had known you since you were a child, it’s not like they were just strangers! Consider it, Mallory, please” she begged, taking the alluded aback “Consider it and let me know on the first week of December if you would like to join us on the trip. Trust me when I say you need it.” 

“Okay, mom, I’ll think about it.” she caved in.

“Alright, dolly, that’s amazing! Your father will be—”

“—Just don’t get your hopes up! And don’t tell dad about this! You know how disappointed he would get if I end up dipping,” for once, she chuckled, not feeling entirely miserable while talking to her mother (which was odd) “I’ll let you know when I make up my mind, it depends more whether my bosses give me the permission or not.” 

“Promise I won’t tell  _ a word _ to your father.”

“Okay.” she muttered.

And so the southern drawl voice and the background noise turned into a steady, echoing beep.

She let the silence sink in. There was something about talking on the phone with her mother that always left her drained and stressed with a pounding thud of a migraine playing inside her head, it was like she drained her of life and energy, in a way. Mallory was aware to relate her own mother to such negative things was wrong, but one could only handle so many years of emotional luggage and gas lighting _ —and, God, it was tiring! _

Off went the faucet, and Mallory began to wash Tammie’s container whilst her mind drifted away. It was somewhat uncomfortable, yet not surprising, to find herself remembering Duncan’s words from earlier that week, to remember what he had said of his mother.

When he was four, he found her with her lover—their chauffeur—kissing against the fence of their gazebo while everyone was eating and drinking a few feet away, it was his father’s birthday party and he had recently undergone a cardiac procedure to try and mend a heart attack he had suffered a couple months prior. His eyes, perplexed as they were, found the driver’s and Annette had rushed to push the man away and drag Duncan back into the house muttering shaky excuses and pleas trying to keep her son from speaking. Even then, Duncan had managed to pry in a couple of steps too far for his mother’s liking.

He let her speak and then asked with dimmed-down eyes if his father had gone to the doctor’s because she kept breaking his heart. From that moment on, Annette began investing much more of her energy in hiding her affairs from him, so much so that she neglected him, in the process.

When Mallory was six, something similar had happened to her.

Her mom, her dad, and her had all moved into their nice new house in a new neighborhood and her father had grilled burgers for them and their new neighbors. Mallory could remember the smell of rotten leaves gathering by the drains and the distant chiding of an ice cream truck passing by, also the unpleasant sound of a lawnmower going off two houses down. Even then Mallory knew she hated loud sounds, those that didn’t have a predictable pace she could follow such as music, and fought the urge to cover her ears while standing on a sideway with her butterfly printed tee and her lilac overall. 

The vestiges of the most complicated years of childhood still clung to her like the clumpy remains of glue from a half-peeled sticker, in those tiny bits of paper and plastic, molten popsicles and sticky fingers, fairytale books and colored elastics. In that whimsical attitude of hers her mother often made her cry over. Mallory had balled her fists and crossed her arms over her chest, all she wanted was to go back home, back to the building she had lived in for so long, back to Miss Havisham from the fifth floor and the cookies she gave her when they went to church together on Sundays, back to her room and her bathtub. If you will, back to normality.

It was her first known emotional crisis, and it would have been lessened (if not forgotten) hadn’t it been for the fact she recognized a bright red car parked by the other sidewalk and an old co-worker of her father’s, sitting on the driver’s seat fighting with her mother and holding onto the wheel, pausing to wipe the tears off his face and shake his head in despair.

She thinks they worked it out, though, because at some point Evelyn brought him into a kiss, and then rushed to leave the car and slam the door before he drove away, screeching his tires as he’d gone. Even then without a solid concept of the toils and snares of infidelity, Mallory knew what her mother had been doing was wrong, and it was this fear of getting caught up inside a lie exactly what made her hide behind their tree as her mother walked back in, with tears staining her face—mom had told her she’d be a big sister earlier that month before moving, earlier that week she had explained her with a saddened smile that she wouldn’t be such, and that she had simply been confused, that the stork had maybe gotten lost.

Only many years later when she’d explained the story her cousin Jane she understood what really happened. 

Mallory shut the faucet and set the container to dry before wiping her hands on a clean rag; she came to realize no matter how hard she rubbed them, the uncomfortable feeling of dirtiness refused to wash out from her skin.

You'll see, secrets are quite sticky. 

Duncan had childhood horror stories to spare, and Mallory had come to think of them only now she was face to face to his old photograph staring at what could be seen as him, him in some point in time, him in a yester life. The way his jaw was captured, tight and clenched, a way she had seen it in often, gave his face a certain sharpness she could definitely get cut on, yet felt flat and lifeless on the paper when she traced it with her finger; quickly she made herself the silent excuse of being calculating from which angle to pin the red string so she could connect it to the first photo she placed, which was Frederick’s. 

She pinned it with an anger that did not become her. 

Right and upwards, that’s where she placed him, right next to his date of birth and his date of passing with a smaller photo of him and Claire at a beneficial event sometime in the late nineties. First thing she could tell was Frederick looked at his wife like the whole meaning of his life; his motivation, his fortune, his strengths all lived inside her. Mallory felt her lip twitch with a pinch of jealousy, but did quickly overcome it when she realized he had already been lied to by that point, and the undying love that he professed would stay undying a few years later when he gave his last breath. 

Honestly she really felt for the guy, especially because she knew between him and Bill, Frederick had been the most decent towards Duncan, and that much of this “weakness” he claimed he had was in fact being a kind, empathic person trapped in a pit of snakes, deprived from giving his son his righteous surname to carry and thrown into the back burner when it came to his raising. Every possible thing Mallory could gather she listed beside his face with a little rounded scribble serving as a bullet point. 

  * nurturing father
  * foolishly loving husband
  * deemed as a wimp by his own son because he didn’t share the Shepherd’s viciousness
  * died from a cardiac disease aged sixty
  * filthy fucking rich 



_ “Whenever I was little and I fell riding my bicycle or running in the yard, I remember he picked me up and cleaned me up while I was still rubbing my eyes crying,”  _ Duncan’s voice then echoed in her brain, the anecdote quite fitting to the gentle face she looked at  _ “It usually caused him trouble if my mother or my uncle were around, because then they’d shake me and ask me to stop crying or force me to hold the tears in while still shaking with snot running all over my face. But when we were alone? I think I felt almost safe.” _

_ “Something we both had in common was that we knew no one was truly safe in that house.” _

The only reason why Mallory was thoroughly convinced Frederick wasn’t Duncan’s biological father was, besides the fact they were not physically similar at  _ all _ , because one of the very first pieces of Shepherd laundry that were exposed after Duncan’s arrest was Annette and Bill had adopted Duncan from a house worker who allegedly had abandoned him shortly after he was born claiming she couldn’t look after him, and that her own family wouldn’t help her given that he was conceived out of wedlock and his biological father had—if anything—been a one night stand.

Mallory called bullshit on that.

  
  


Back in the late eighties and early nineties, Bill and Annette were noticeable yet faceless figures in the American politics; back then their father was still in possession of their conglomerate and their lives were much more private and laid back then they were now, standing in the eye of the Underwood hurricane. It was perfectly plausible for Duncan to be conceived and born without any sort of news coverage or the rise of any questions whether or not Annette had really carried him. Mallory’s money was on Duncan being her flesh and blood.

When she pinned Annette’s picture to a side, including also a picture of Duncan and Annette at  _ Planet Hollywood _ when Duncan was eight years old and a picture of Annette aged seventeen, it was inevitable to notice the similarities in their matching, youthful faces. Age, for whatever reason, had seemed to darkened her gaze; a poignant reminder not only of time but of experience, of loss, of corruption and trauma. He had been, in fact, his mother’s spitting image; the same shade of walnut hair, the same hooded light eyes, the same hard-angled eyebrows, everything pointed at Duncan being hers. 

Mallory was unable to see her reflection from the hallway mirror, unable to catch her brow knitting and her lips pursing with discomfort, with confusion.

And so she whispered to a face that wouldn’t answer:

“Why is  _ that _ you’re hiding, Annette? And  _ why _ are you hiding it?”

It was hard to do so but she kept herself from wincing at how childish and gullible her voice sounded, thinking it was better to be naive over being cynical. It wouldn’t surprise her if her research was unfruitful, she was bargaining into things that really weren’t her business, anyway.

She looked at her, and remembered the poise and somewhat coarse sound of her voice, she had given an interview during the trials and taken the opportunity to defend not only Duncan’s but her entire family’s integrity, she was a woman of imposing mannerisms and perfectly styled hair. It reminded her of Duncan’s, it was the same wave, parted to the same side. Mallory couldn’t keep herself from feeling that, in a way, Duncan was imitating her. 

But, who wouldn’t imitate their mother, in his position? In a field of thorns, she was the purest of red roses, standing out from the crass and the rash almost painfully, mocking in grace and in beauty whoever and whatever surrounded her with an entitlement and power that had been bestowed upon her from the cradle. Duncan, on his end, had been a disgrace from his birth. If he couldn’t make use of all of his mother’s resources he could fake it until he made it, fake it like someone she knew of had done. 

Francis Joseph Underwood. 

Born in Gaffney, South Carolina, in the year of 1959. The infamous 46th President of the United States, one that left a trail of chaos and corpses behind him as if it they were Hansel and Gretel’s path of crumbs, one that—inconveniently or conveniently so, depending on how you looked at it—also happened to be involved with Annette Shepherd from the years 1988 to 1991 according to somewhat reliable sources, the ones that had attempted to expose the Shepherd matriarch to public scorn last year’s summer. How dreadful it was that whoever was linked to Annette ended up dead, incarcerated, expatriated, or all three at once! The only thing more unsettling than the thought were Frank’s dark and all-knowing eyes fixed onto her as though he knew of her intentions.

Mallory brought a pin to the upper left corner and sank it place, same with the right upper corner and the lower left corner. When she came to the lower right corner, having absentmindness gotten the best of her, the pin brushed her thumb and scraped through drawing a tiny bit of blood. 

“Ow!” she cried, holding onto her thumb and shoving it into her mouth. 

She looked down at her clothes, hoping her lousy bleeding finger hadn’t stained any of her clothes for she was not in the mood of investing any time in trying to save the piece of clothing. Frank, in the meantime, thought it was an appropriate moment to suddenly decide the rest of the pictures pinned to her corkboard weren’t worthy of him, and down he came, pins and all, a though she hadn’t taken the precious time to secure them into the cork.

“Wh—? Dammit, Frank, stay in fucking place!”

Once she tried, twice she tried, the third time she got tired of fighting the pins and chose to tape him to the cork in a tacky makeshift frame. A framed man, she thought, Tom Hammerschmidt would have had a  _ field day  _ with that metaphor. Not like she cared to share. 

Matter of fact, she shot a guilty look at the table, back where an auburn-haired, brown-eyed girl with thin lips and fair complexion lied. Flat, like most pictures, and paper thin, but heavy to the touch once Mallory had lifted her. Heavy to the touch, heavy to the heart, she wondered whether it had been a good idea to add her to her “case wall” or not, it somewhat felt disrespectful. 

Zoe had always been an object of fascination to Mallory, she was twenty-three and everyone was speculating about her passing, mostly due to the odd circumstances behind it and how shocking it felt to her to see someone so close to her age ending up that way after having given the impression that she was headed somewhere with her work. Mallory had done some research on her, and even spoken to those who thought themselves well-versed on the subject, nobody truly believed it was an accident despite all of the evidence pointing in the right (or should she say wrong) direction. Who falls in front of a train, anyway? It baffled her she was supposed to believe that. 

Maybe she was simply projecting her own fears onto Zoe’s passing because she had once pictured herself as the type of person Zoe was with her precise profession and modus operandi. Had she chosen journalism over psychiatry, there were plenty of chances she would have found herself in a similar position. She sighed, looking back at her corkboard and with her picture flicking on her hands. 

When she pinned Zoe to the wall, and this picture didn’t slip or fall, she did it with utmost gentleness, the look on her face expressed what her words couldn’t for they would have gone unheard; an apology of a sort, for pinning her close to a man she didn’t trust and (despite the lack of evidence, aside from texts from her co-workers taken surely out of context and shared a few years too late) most likely hurt her. 

A feeling of trepidation held her prisoner. Even from the outside, even from afar, the world of Frank Underwood was that reeking of dirty money and bad blood. Zoe Barnes, Peter Russo, God only knew how many more. 

Aside from his connection to Duncan’s mother and coincidental timeline, there was little to connect Duncan to Francis. Little for a casual onlooker, but Mallory meant to dive deeper into those waters, for there had to be a reason behind Claire’s spite towards the Shepherd family and her harsh attempts to keep Duncan behind the bars under the pretext he had committed treason against his own country, there had to be a reason why Claire would flaunt her pregnancy the way she did, as to assert her dominance over Francis, and Annette, and everyone. 

Mallory would have to find out if Duncan was ever in touch with Francis, and whether or not he had been actually working under his tutelage as some slightly unreliable sources claimed. But if she wanted to do that she would have to hear it from Duncan’s mouth, as thus far she hadn’t been too successful at making him talk about that subject, and by not being too successful she meant she hadn’t really tried. 

Thus far she only knew.

  * possible responsible of the Annette/Claire rivalry
  * extremely villainous, wouldn’t have cared to throw his own son under the bus
  * of similar characters and ambition 
  * whoever he saw as inconvenient, conveniently died
  * filthy fucking rich



The whole Frank thing was giving her a headache, honestly. It was easier for her to handle great amounts of information, even make something out of little of it, but the lack of material aside from her gut feelings and the “vibes” she got from Duncan ever since she first met him weren’t enough to depict this man, this schemer, as something more than a picture framed in tape. There he was, mocking, surrounded by the chaos and fire he made out of the laws of men and their ever burning greeds. No wonders she had suspected Duncan was his son from the beginning, only man of the same flesh and making would evoke such feeling of utter insatisfaction. 

With a throat that had long since ran dry, Mallory took one last glance at Francis’ section of the case wall and dragged her feet towards the sink, filling a glass to the brim with tap water. She gulped down, thinking of some way some strategy to get Duncan talk about his true heritage and his family’s relation with Frank Underwood, it frustrated her to think he would be a tough nut to crack. Whenever she felt like she had made some advance, Duncan built the wall between them back up, and showed himself in a different way as he had the day we met when she tried to convince him he had suffered from a panic attack. No, Duncan wouldn’t tell so easily, if ever. If he happened to be the illegitimate son of late president Frank Underwood, it was ought to be his biggest, darkest secret, root of his greatest ambitions and disgraces alike—it was only natural he chose to hid it, to avoid himself any more turmoils and keep his family intact.

“ _ After all, we are nothing more or less than what we choose to reveal.” _

  
  
  
  


After a couple hours of silence and some unsolicited procrastination from her end, Mallory began wondering if maybe she had been too harsh with her mother. It was only natural, this was what it always happened whenever she stopped to breathe after having spoken to her.

Maybe she shouldn’t have been so harsh with her for bringing up that boy before, maybe she shouldn’t have spoken with that foul language in regards to her health, maybe she should have said yes rather than maybe. All her sentences were sour affirmations, yet they all felt like questions. Now she lied on her living room floor with one of her deep turquoise cushions as a pillow, sequins embroidered awkwardly into her scalp as she moved. The cold feeling of her smooth wooden floors (however stained) was grounding and reassuring enough, but she had been lying on the floor for what felt for hours and somehow she couldn’t bring herself to move.

_ 2:17 AM  _ said the analog clock by her coffee table when she turned around.

Another dozen sequins tugged at her skin as she did so.

Mallory did not wince. 

For a moment she thought what she was doing was stupid, and she meant not just the case wall, she meant absolutely everything that was going on with her life at the moment. Almost eight years had passed since she had fled Stockbridge, Massachusetts with her face hidden between her hair and the tinted passenger window, almost nine months since she had moved to Spokane and started working in Airway Heights. She had told herself, perhaps foolishly so, that this would only be a short period of adjustment and she would soon enough collect herself and move to a bigger city; like Philadelphia, or Chicago, she considered even going back to school (a different school, for God’s, Mallory took a deep breath down below where she was lying) and specializing in childhood and adolescence psychology, hopefully do her internships at some youth centre and take it from there,  _ grow _ from there.

A feeling of hopelessness seeped through at the inevitable realization of seeing her life goals, as unlikely, as distant as ever. 

What was she even doing? She had burned out her brain during college and worked herself until she dropped to the floor panting, and what for? She was working a miserable job at a miserable place with a miserable salary that could be a punishment for taking a job she was most likely unqualified for. She fought the angry tears that threatened with spilling. 

What was she supposed to say? That she was happy, that it had been her dream to work at a federal detention centre surrounding herself with men who were chained by the same ball she dragged by which was bitterness and regret? She wouldn’t lie to the world like that.

She wouldn’t lie to herself like that.

That glass of tap water and the lukewarm food she had eaten, it seemed, had done her no good, because her body felt weaker and heavier than ever. Maybe gravity was helping her out, maybe gravity was anchoring her down to keep a gust of wind to blow her far and away from how small she’d became. 

_ 2:22 AM, _ she was definitely  _ not _ in the mood to blast Joan Jett anymore. 

Was this the terrible feeling that kept Duncan Shepherd from sleeping at night? Was this lack of outlook and direction what troubled him so? Rest assured it hadn’t been to the same degree, but Mallory also had been pegged as promising and gifted at some point in time, she knew better than anymore to countless cons of being called special much too soon, much too often. Now she felt gray and deflated, the sight of her depleting under a pointless promise of “soon”.

Soon you’ll get out of this. 

Soon they’ll forget what happened.

Soon this whole thing will be a memory. 

If this was the feeling, the one true thing in Duncan’s life, she pitied him. It must have been hell to see his inning approaching with cuffed hands, to see the floor beneath him dissolving with no hopes to bear and no days to count but the days to leave that pigpen. 

Mallory wondered just how much Bill Shepherd had to do with it.

At by the time the clock struck  _ 2:48 AM  _ and she pinned his photo against the cork, at last, she began to understand it all the better. She quitted snubbing the most obvious choice as the wrong one, she stopped reaching for straws and took the time to see and to listen. 

  * verbally and physically abusive
  * most likely ashamed of his birth, and what it entailed
  * extremely demanding of him from a very young age
  * overall homophobic
  * wow, surprise, filthy fucking rich



What if Bill Shepherd  _ was _ Duncan’s biological father? What if all those vile rumors of Bill bedding his own sister were not fiction, but reality? Mallory had to admit that in her years and with her experience she was not one to judge others’ wrongdoings, but it crossed the line and left a bitter taste in her mouth all the same. 

Mallory was more attentive to detail than ever. She noticed Annette had a perfect spotless skin whereas both Bill and Duncan had moles, freckles, and birthmarks scattered over the plains of their matching skins. The picture of Duncan in question wasn’t helpful, but that wasn’t important, Mallory had seen him in person and noticed those little details about him from up close, noticing also how similar the color of their eyes were. 

Both Frederick and Francis’ eyes were dark, and Annette’s were light yet not quite light enough to match her son’s. It wouldn’t be the first case of a nephew inheriting features from his uncle, as she had seen it in her own family, but in this whole context and with Duncan’s history with Bill it wasn’t entirely mindless to seek and to wonder. 

The truth was, he was meant to represent something harmful and shameful to be for him to be so unnecessarily cruel to him, for him to push his boundaries and chastise his every fault the way he did, is like he wanted Duncan to disappear. But Duncan had been steadfast, and it had been his committed to his family even more so than his youthful greed what doomed him.

Some things didn’t add up, however.

Mallory had taken a good luck at Duncan’s medical record and nothing had made her suspect of his genetic material and the conditions it brought along with it. Duncan wasn’t a small child nor was he a small adult, leaning more towards the taller side. No heart conditions, no bigger issues with his teeth aside from his crooked front tooth, and—by God—sure as Hell he had no noticeable facial asymmetries.

It was way too late for her to be in her greatest state of mind and exhaustion clouded her thinking, but to look at his face (even more so, remembering it, remembering the expression he made when he looked at her) was enough to dizzy her. She shook away the thought, feeling the warmth creep under the skin of her face for the second time that night and for the very same reason. 

“Fuck it, I cannot continue this tonight, I’m too tired” 

She yawned, the look on her face unfriendly. 

There was no line hanging in her head, no clever one to quote as she struggled to brush her teeth and get into bed after changing into something more comfortable. By now, by then, it was mostly static. And she regretted it clearly, but that was all she had. When her head hit her pillow, she was welcomed by the same darkness and heaviness and mantled her night after night letting her drain herself from the wicked thoughts and the heavy limbs all day she had carried.

It was already three in the morning in Spokane, Washington, when Mallory Howell fell asleep. She promised herself to look deeper into things when the morning came, and put the pieces together whenever she could, whenever she saw him. In between places, and monuments, and dead journalists, double-crossing journalists, and highly questionable good mothers, one name and one face was prominent. There he was, pinned on the centre, bathed in a frail moonbeam that snuck in through the window. 

It was the first night Mallory Howell ever dreamed of Duncan Shepherd, much of the dream she could not remember, but one single line kept repeating itself even after she did wake.

  
  


**_“Do not start a war you know you’re gonna lose.”_ **

  
  


  
  



	8. Gestures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are a lot of details about this chapter in particular that are ought to be imperfect and far-fetched, but thankfully this is a little world of fantasy. After a little over a month, I stared blankly at my Google Docs folder for this fic unable to write a single page and, out of nowhere, wrote over thirty pages over the span of two nights. It’s unbelievable, really, but even in the middle of all of these misconceptions and flawed settings, I feel incredibly pleased. Especially because this chapter FINALLY sets Duncan and Mallory into motion in the tone that I desire, I am hoping you like this. I sure did.
> 
> PS:Thank you to my lovely MCA for the copious amounts of supporting and cheering that birthed this monster of a chapter. This one is for you. Yet again, all of this is for you.

He was tired, and in spite of having lied with eyes wide shut for what felt like an eternity, he could not bring himself to rest, only to fall into a heavy and regretful state of unconsciousness. Night after night it was the same, he could flip through pages of the same old dog-eared book— _Crime and Punishment_ , by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Frederick’s favorite—feeling the ink press and wear out through the pages neglected, slowly fading the words away and with them the last vestiges he had left of the life he once had. Of the love he once felt. Of a father who was not quite, but certainly tried.

His mother never truly understood why, out of all the books he possessed, he asked expressively for the one he often rolled his eyes at, and never brought himself to finish. Frederick had given it to him as a present the year Duncan turned fifteen, the year he officially started working at Shepherd Unlimited, as a way to pass from father to son, from man to man, a tiny piece of reflection and knowledge in the shape of a Russian classic. Duncan had thought it to be hideous, he had even struggled to finish _The Gambler_ (a book he foolishly thought he could finish in one sitting considering the author had written it in thirty days time, only for it to tire his mind every time he tried to get the names right) and squirmed away from anything mildly psychological in nature after becoming traumatized with Franz Kafka’s _Metamorphosis_ in that year’s English class. God, he hated cockroaches. 

Looking back on it, Duncan had to admit books of highly reflectional nature were prone to unnerve him, he didn’t want to know what it was like to live in the carcass of an insect or breaking a neck open with an axe. As much as he didn’t want to face those feelings that came along with ones of guilt, of greed, of despair, of walking into territories unknown at his own peril and finding in the mirror of endless rage and corruption his own reflection. All of those books, with their messages of human deprivation, with their blatant display of realism, debunked and took a shit on that self-indulgent misconception of “earlier times were better times, more innocent times”, for it didn’t matter if it was an icy road, no carriages in sight in Imperial Russia, or the very Oval Office in Washington DC., or a murky prison cell in Spokane. One thing remained the same.

Humanity was, is, and would continue to be, a big pile of shit.

Why was he clinging still to chapters seven and eight, then? Well, he’d ruthlessly ignored it back when Frederick gave it to him, using his excuse of a job to shield himself, then he’d hidden it away once he died. Now he needed to know what was it that his if you will, adoptive father had seen in those pages that made them so important. Was it sheer, and pure sentimentalism? Or had he foreseen what his boy would become, being born from a pit of snakes? Either way, he found the title oddly becoming to his circumstances, and he thought he might as well find a way to keep himself entertained now all the other books had been read, tucked back in, taken back out, and used as makeshift nightstands already.

That, and the fact it never hurt to have some good, fresh, daydream scenarios.

Those were the second thing he turned to when he needed to sleep. He thought of when he would see her next, he thought of what he would see her wear next time and how she would fix, then, her hair. Why, it was clear he was no longer a preparatory school hellraiser looking for a distraction or crushing on the first figure of authority whose perfume pleased him enough to keep leaning in, keep sniffing. _Fuck,_ he dragged turning lazily onto his side in sheets of linen, she even smelled so good; like all kinds of flowers he loved. Even the colors she surrounded herself with gave the illusion of her being something worthy of being deemed as art, framed and hung against a wall.

Duncan stirred groggily coming out of his sleep, feeling himself harden, thinking of something he could use to pin her better.

He would be lying if he said Mallory wasn’t partly why he was struggling to sleep. Every other night or so he stayed looking at his cell’s ceiling for hours thinking of what he could say to get her attention, thinking of a way to compliment her and make her blood rush to her cheeks; her stupid small talk with the guard would be nothing compared to her reaction, he imagined her fixing her widened gaze on his, staring her down into a shy little thing, blushing and trembling like a virgin. There was something about her that made him want to assert his power over her, his authority, in this setting that was nearly impossible but that didn’t mean he couldn’t find a way to make their meetings more tolerable; he still hated her guts every time she pried in too soon and too close, but his lust for her was penting up, and would soon outweigh it. 

With heavy steps he brought himself to get out of bed, walking across his small cell towards his smaller mirror, the look he found in the reflection was utterly disheveled. He saw his face dotted, gaunt and disperse under a layer of dismay and dust; at times like these he chose rather to avert it, instead of having to face himself and all those dreadful prepositions they evoked: _“Do I look older? Do I look grayer? Do I look thinner? What’s left of the man once captured in these walls, is there anything?”_ up comes the bile inside throat, his worries high, his spirits low. 

_“_ _Let's dance in style, let's dance for a while. Heaven can wait we're only watching the skies,”_ Duncan sang as he opened the lid of his toothpaste, squirting and smearing a lousy minty blue-green stripe alike a caterpillar on his toothbrush _“Hoping for the best, but expecting the worst”_

The low vibrato of his sleepy voice met somewhere between austere and mellow, his gaze shifted to the sink, the mix of paste, spit and foam disappearing languidly under a stream of cold water. Somewhere through the faucet and pipes, down to God knows where, a melody echoed, the voice only partly his. Duncan rinsed his mouth and wiped it with his entire hand, before placing both to his sides pressed into his metallic sink; owning up to someone else’s question. 

_“Are you gonna drop the bomb or not…?”_

Before, he had only looked forward to uneventful days, now he found his breath hitching and his blood run eager through his vein at the realization it was Wednesday again. It had taken about enough to come by, now he was swimming in the feeling of excitement it brought along as he searched his face for blemishes and looked intently at his stubble checking if he was in any need of a trim. The harsh texture met the palms of his hands rather shakily, he could see his eyes were narrowed in concentration yet they bore an uneasy gleam about them, it was almost like he was scared. But he wasn’t scared, nor was he upset; in fact, he was far from both, he was revitalized, he was ecstatic. 

Mallory—he had mentally started to call her by her first name—had agreed they were succeeding at making him open up, she had been pleased by their advance and hopeful that his mourning would ultimately lead him in the right direction, for it to serve as his much needed motivation. In every stormy cloud Mallory saw a silver lining, that was the kind of behaviour mocked and berated by Washington society, but he had to remind himself there was big difference between their distant state and the district capital. 

The man rummaged around his room, rushing to smooth down the fabric of his covers after tucking the corners in and hastily flopping his pillow, putting some books back into place, footing his extra pairs of shoes until they were all aligned underneath his bed, using a bit of toilet paper to scrub any hint of dirt off his sink. Alright, all in order, what was he missing?

_The time_ , his gaze shot up, _what time was it?_

_Only 7:42_ , he still had time to get to the showers, most of the inmates had to be training, or eating, _or sleeping!_ —those were the lazy fuckers locked up for embezzlement, years must have gone since the last time their bellies let them look down at their dicks—so all he had to do was gather his things, hope and pray no one would bother him. _Alright, let’s do this._

Steam baths, facials, hot rocks to the back, endless moisturizing and shaving, and scrubbing, that was the kind of capricious and pricey treatment Duncan had grown up being used to. To the calming scent of baths salts, to the soft friction of fresh towels, to spend about as long as he wanted in the shower for the water bill was the least of his worries. Being imprisoned had turned even personal hygiene into a traumatizing experience. He’d had to stripped naked in front of guards, share his space with other men, managed to do whatever he must in the short time he allowed himself to be at that space. Duncan didn’t trust anybody at that precinct, at times not even himself, so he didn’t really count on having someone looking after him at that place, standing by the door to let him have even if just a piece of calm.

_Oh, but he had money._ And money gave it _everything_ , especially in places like this. 

Faces passed by his sides, no one paid special attention to him, or at least that’s how they acted. At first he had been a novelty, a new potential chew toy, the men he “shared buildings with” had seen him on television for weeks on as the trials took place and once he arrived at Airway Heights they had been wanting to know what he was up to, some of them idiotic enough approached him during lunchtime and asked him about the app. _The app._ The goddamn app. Now even the term felt like one of those words he had seen left-wing politicians with communist tendencies overuse to refer to things that ultimately ended up feeling like nails on chalkboard to him.

People, commander, republic, revolution.

_The app._ The app, the app, the app. Fuck’s sake. 

They had long since started to ignore him, those inmates, maybe they realized there was no use in making conversation with someone who thought himself above them all and unrightfully convicted. Commoners, that’s kind of how the felt in his presence, Duncan was very much aware they talked about him using derogatory terms, messing with things from his money to his sexual orientation and regardless they stayed silent when he walked by. Simply pathetic. The man made his way down the hall, and found himself in an odd state of calm with he approached the shower’s passage, noticing it illuminated and empty. The distant rustle of objects moving and voices was enough for him to feel at peace, feel secure.

Ample yet divided spaces welcomed him, the faint drip drop of a loose shower head was all that kept him company, the pending doubt of where it came from made it all feel untouchable and sparse; in places like this surrounded by metal, ceramic, and linoleum it was easy to be overcome by the feeling of being trapped in a wrinkle in time. It would be the current year as well as it could be mid or early seventies. One just couldn’t tell when it was, only where, those goddamn places had a reputation of their own and—a shiver went of his spine, the hair on his forearms stood to an end before the unpleasant memory—they all lived up to them. 

All the showers were separated in what he could describe as three quarters of a cubicle: a wall to the shower, one wall to each of his sides, but no door. The floors were cold and rather unclean, they had been scrubbed with some chemical, obviously, but there was more than bacteria the cleaning staff would have to brush off in order for it to feel like a decent self-cleaning space, again; the light was oddly distributed, it had taken Duncan a couple of tries to find the right stall to shower in where he wasn’t either blinded unnecessarily by the light or he didn’t feel like his own frame would cast shadows upon the wall and not let him see but his own hands while he was showering.

He already knew the right one by heart, and when he approached it, discarding his clothes, he couldn’t help but glancing over his shoulder again. Hoping that the dime dropped by Annette had done its job and the non-hostile guards she’d slid some cash to were vigilant.

The uneasy feeling was washed away when the water started running.

_“What are you doing in there?”_ the voice in his daydream asked.

He would smile, putting his face back under the shower stream while he palmed away the rests of shampoo from behind his shoulders for a second, turning his face to the tinted shower door and speaking over the volume of the falling water. Around him the fog would gather, the fumes of oranges, cedar, and musk would swirl around him and creep into his pores.

_“Taking a shower, babe, I got up a little earlier this morning and I went on a little run. It loosened me up but I’m afraid I couldn’t get to the office all sticky,_ ” he would chuckle _“I’ll be out in ten, I just need to wash all of this off.”_

And he would be able to make it out, her small outline from the other side of the glass, the wiggly silhouette of her arms folded as her hands were on her waist. In the cold reality of his actual state, even that scene playing out was enough to make the water run warm. Or maybe it was just him. Regardless, he continued to swim in it. 

_“I can’t wait for ten minutes, Duncan, I’m running kinda late.”_ she would whine, an adorable almost juvenile little sound coming up her bare, slender throat and pouring through her little pouty lips. He would smile at it, as he was now, just guessing it from her tone. 

He would turn off the shower, wiping the excess of water from his face, and open the shower door.

_“Then come right in and join me,”_ he would say, his tone suggestive and inviting, his teeth sinking just lightly on his lower lip, his side pressed to the wall in a blatant attempt to flex and expose himself; so he would guess by her widening gaze and the way she shifted her weight from one foot to another _“Let’s save some water.”_

Mallory would narrow her eyes at him knowingly, with a tilt of her head. And of course she would end up giving in, nobody wanted to be late for work that morning, nobody would refuse being helped with cooking breakfast and then meeting again at lunchtime to grab a bite somewhere down in East Street. 

Duncan stood directly under the water again, not even the harsh wet sound keeping him from feeling the drumming of his heart inside his ears at the thought of what would follow. At the thought of her tugging at the knot in the front of her black towel and letting it drop at her feet, his sore eyes being graced with the sight of her breasts bouncing as she hopped in the shower, of fighting himself from yanking her right in and pulling her into him.

_“Babe”_ she’d whisper.

Soft, white foam running down the length of her thighs, covering her back, her chest. His eager hands rubbing soap down the incline of her waist as he hummed into her ear just how beautiful she looked that morning, apologizing for having left her in bed alone after the night they had shared, speaking out loud on how he would have wanted to stay in bed a little longer holding onto her frame, all while her arms wrapped around his shoulders or waist gasping quietly at his touch, tugging at her lip, brushing her groin against his driving him crazy with want. 

_Maybe I could do it,_ he told himself. _No one’s gonna walk in on me, who’s gonna stop me?_ It was pathetic, really, the thought of stroking his cock in a prison shower where all kinds of gross and crazy shits happened. Water ran down his hardened shaft and he nearly hissed at it having wished instead to be the wetness of her tongue tracing his every vein. He forced himself into mustering some self control, forced himself to draw the curtain just when he was just about to reach his favorite part of his favorite daydream: the way he placed her against the wet shower wall and lowered himself to his knees, lovingly parting her asscheeks and marveling at the wetness he would find making her soft folds glisten before he dived in. 

The ghost of her breathy moan echoed and died in his mind.

Begrudgingly and far from satisfied, Duncan got a grasp on his towell and began to dry himself off, frowning as soon as reached his crotch area and holding his breath for a while to both calm himself and hopefully bring the aching one down. He wouldn’t get a thing if Duncan himself wasn’t getting any, either. 

_“You better behave yourself and go back to sleep, partner. There’ll be none for us for now, and that’s on you and me.”_

There he was, lost in his thought of Mallory, having put on his pants and zipped them back up, his hair still a bit wet from the shower which he was drying off rather lazily, when a loud, hideous sound brought him out of his little reverie and immediately put him in a natural state of alert.

Somewhere not too far away an alarm went off.

* * *

_Why do you build me up (build me up) Buttercup, baby_  
_Just to let me down (let me down) and mess me around_  
_And then worst of all (worst of all) you never call, baby_  
_When you say you will (say you will) but I love you still_  
_I need you (I need you) more than anyone, darlin'_  
_You know that I have from the start_  
_So build me up (build me up)  
_ _Buttercup, don't break my heart_

She told herself that week she wouldn’t be so sullen, so far it was working.

Mallory was unaware, whether the drinking from the night before or dusting off her grandmother’s old records what had done the trick, but something deep inside her shot her with a violent rush of energy, those she only got when it was half passed two in the morning and she was supposed to be sleeping. Had she been at home she would have moved every piece of furniture she saw and scrubbed the surface pearly, sprayed it all with pine Febreeze and changed her towels and sheets. The prospect of doing so as soon as she got home that evening was exhilarating. She would pour herself a glass of wine or two, then she would get to work and leave the space fucking impeccable.

Cleanness of the home was cleanness of the soul. In the world of her, tidiness equaled peace. _God,_ she snorted, her mother would be so proud.

She was all greetings and smiles when she got out of her car and walked to the entrance that morning. Sure, she had run a little late arriving about half an hour later than usual; Mallory had spoken to Daniel the night before, the poor man had gotten caught up in a batch of hard snow the night and had to call for a tow to get home and save his precious overpriced coffeepot of a car. Of course he understood if she took the time to drive safely and arrive in one piece, it wasn’t like she was awfully needed, anyway.

Hot take: that had been utter bullshit. Mallory had driven like hell that morning! She simply woke up later than usual and took the time to give Tammie a ride to drop Nicky off at school, something about an early entry due to some science project he had been working on. Mallory had smiled at him, listened to his list of favorite dinosaurs, she believes he did this at least times a dozen until Tammie kindly hushed him. Usually she would have chosen to step in, but she could only imagine how many times a day she had to listen to it.

Honestly she had gotten annoyed around the fourth time. 

Now there she was, trying to make shapes out of the piling snow and not see them as walls rising around her, imprisoning her, it was already bad enough having to spend as long at the correction centre as she already did; no one but an inmate should spend so long trapped inside its iron bars and concrete, but a job was a job, and it was not like she could afford to let her days go to waste, especially when she had a tuition to pay for. 

But that morning something was different, that morning Mallory cared to look around and fix her gaze in the pastel blue that mantled it all and thought maybe it was not all so bad. She would get a job somewhere else, move to Philly or Chicago, start anew.

Why couldn’t she? 

Her steps were heavy and confident when she felt the ground making little mute thuds under her black thick-heeled stilettos, it was a novelty for her to put as much effort in her attire as she did that day, dusting off a rather newish dress that had been hanging in her closet for months now, never worn. That day she had gone for her long-sleeved navy blue plaid dress with the green stripes and the skin-tight waist, with an a-line skirt that reached an inch above her knees, and fixed her hair in a bouncy ponytail with two strands framing her face.

It was a special day, that day, November 1st. She would make sure it was worth it.

Looking at her, for once, felt like looking at a woman of her age. Experienced, but still hopeful, wiser, but still bearing the fresh blooming roses her twenties carried; even glancing at her from the corner of your eye was enough to feel some sense of ownership and self-awareness that could only inspire oneself to own up to their actions. 

She looked happy, for a change.

Mallory reached out with eager hands at the waist of someone standing by the reception with her back to her, shaky and playful they sank in, grasping lightly at the soft flesh she guessed, the woman she had startled shrieked and bounced at her spot as she quickly turned around, and the opalescent look of her eyes softened as soon as she realized who it was. Mallory leaped forward, bringing her into a hug.

“Roberta!” she cried, “So good to finally have you back!”

The woman could only laugh and swing from side to side trapped in her grasp, in response.

“What’s gotten into you, child? My God, good to see you too!” she cried.

When she broke apart, she did with the broadest of smiles, gently tugging at Roberta’s hands. “Being here without you has been a freaking mad house, that’s what! I’m so happy to have you back, Roberta, I swear—” Mallory just spew out at great speed, barely capable of letting others make words out of that machine-gun-like ramble “—I’ve spent the last two weeks drinking coffee with Dr. Christensen daily, and listening to him talking about his trip to Punta Cana again and again, and pretending I didn’t want to smash a coffee pot on his head.”

Both of them laughed, the complicity and childishness of it made it all alike to a scene proper to Austen’s writing, in them was a modern depiction of her Lydia and Kitty. Minus the unwise wine consumption and, quite frankly, a severe lack of Mr. Wickham’s. 

“I went on that trip” she bit back with narrowed eyes, full of disbelief “And trust me, it was not that great, the man looked like goddamn _fool_ all the time.” Roberta yelled in a whisper, Mallory could but snort at it. 

_“White tees and beach sandals, baby. Pure Greek Linen, that’s how I do it!”_ she sing-sang, breaking into laughter at the end of the sentence choking it out, how many times was she forced to smile at the framed old picture? Pretend she wasn’t about to crack up at the sight of the man with a sand covered chest on the _poolside_ , and a cigar hanging treacherously from his mouth? God, he must have felt himself so hard.

Fucking Scarface wannabe. 

“Oh! How was Jamaica, by the way? Is your grandma okay?”

Roberta tsked her tongue “She’s better, ever since she broke her hip thanks to that stupid nurse it has been harder to take care of her and now she won’t barely eat. Momma has been doing a good job, though,” she admitted “She wasn’t too happy I had to get back to The States sooner, but I had already taken a week off being ill and the second I got better I took a plane; my boss wasn’t too happy. So I guess I helped as much as I could, while I could.”

Mallory frowned slightly, rubbing Roberta’s arms “I’m sure she thanked having you there.”

“Hardly.” she muttered.

_Great, mommy issues,_ she thought, _I’m not even special like that._

Regardless of how it bothered her to share ailing with someone, a common dread of hers, Mallory had to admit without Roberta it would have taken her much longer to get used to the torment of working at a correction centre such as Airway Heights, it was a much too hostile space for young, gullible woman, it was a much too deceiving maze to walk through all alone. Mallory had never been one able to brag about having many friends and she didn’t expect to become the Queen Bee of her social circle at that place, either, but Roberta was the owner of one of the greatest sensibilities she had ever seen. In the mind of her she could see through people, discern their greatest joys and greatest concerns, it had taken her no time to track her down as the source of that strong melancholy that was lingering in her hallway.

First it’d been a coffee, later a chat by the courtyard, then a trip to Oregon for the weekend.

She liked feeling validated, she liked receiving more than the seering answers her mother would give her and the shallow responses Daniel Christensen would; had it been another time, perhaps, she would have turned to Coco or Madison for support and advise but it had been a very long time since she had spoken to both at the same time and nowadays she was certain they wanted nothing to do with her, yet another casualty in her unfathomable spat. It was impossible to keep herself from wondering, exactly, how much her mistakes had made her lose; she shrunk her nose and patted Roberta’s back, unsure of what to exactly say. 

“Sorry to hear that, Bertie.” 

That was another detail of hers, she didn’t want to ruin it all by saying the wrong thing. All her current friendships she touched with feather-light hands, not because she attempted to be right at all times, she simply didn’t think she could afford to lose anyone else. 

Roberta fixed her gaze on the ground, she wished she could see what hid between her eyelashes, pluck whatever she was thinking of out and, then, be able to say the right thing. Words got caught up in her throat, blood ran up from her hands, that was the whole shebang, she had to hold her breath and calm herself before her high spirits came crashing down. And that, too, she could foresee; Roberta looked back up and shook her head nonchalantly shrugging her shoulders and getting ahold of her forearm.

They took on a walk through the security points, Mallory coming in first, Roberta coming in second. One of the security guard let her through the metal detector and looked over her badge like he did daily, she had forgotten his name but she remembered him from his odd way to wear the hat, a little too loose on his head looking like some sort of tobacco reeking version of Elmer Fudd. The scent of charcoal and smoke dizzied her, Mallory had always been repulsed by the smell of cigarettes.

“Now tell me, you…” Roberta voiced from behind her, balancing her feet as she came through the baffle gate, “...Did you go on a vacay while I was gone, or somethin’?”

Mallory snorted “Why’d you ask?”

Once both women were free, and away from the guard’s god awful smell, Mallory looked back at Roberta and slowed down her own steps to let her catch up. The alluded looked her over and suddenly the fabric of her dress felt all too heavy, odd how other could make you feel overdressed or even naked just by looking at you! Mallory swallowed nervously in expectation, hoping her choice of outfit wasn’t inappropriate or, otherwise, preposterous. 

“You look different,” she limited herself to say.

Mallory raised her eyebrows, smoothing them the fabric of her skirt “I take it as better.”

“Yeah, take it as better,” she agreed, “Your skin looks fresher, your nails are painted and this _dress—_ ” Roberta stressed out, motioned lightly at her “—I’ve never seen you wearing something like this before! You’ve always been tidy, I mean, immaculate I dare say. But never too cheery, and right now you look cheery.” 

She smiled.

“What’s his name?” 

Now the gesture got frozen in an awkward grimace, Mallory eyed her carefully for half a second just to make sure she’d listen well, “I’m sorry?” she croaked quietly.

“ _His name_ , Mallory” she dragged out nudging her playfully “Tell me his name!”

She chuckled dryly, fixing her gaze on the end of the half “He doesn’t have a name, Bertie, there’s no one” she swore, “I simply went through some old stuff last night and found my grandmother’s records, got in a good mood after I found them! I guess I’m just trying to be like she would like me to be, comfortable, carefree, easy-going.”

“And how’s that going for you?”

“It’s hard as shit and I’ve already felt awkward twice, but I’m getting there.”

Roberta let out a laugh and shook her head no, for some reason it always seemed to amuse her to look at Mallory being honest, maybe a little too honest, it was like she was looking at a child discovering her own sarcasm. Then they would come in, the curse words she would teach her, then the hard lessons. Hopefully she wouldn’t have to see scars from those. 

“Dang it, my watch stopped working,” she complained, tapping on the glass with one of her nails, stretching her wrist and shaking it in the air as if that would help getting it to work again, “What time is it? I wanna drink some coffee but I gotta be upstairs by eight sharp, Doctor Shapiro is back and she’s been a pain in the ass lately with all her scheduling shit. If I don’t make it on time I’ll have to make up some shitty little excuse and I had to lecture Sabrina on not telling lies at school, so I don’t wanna have to make up shit for it.”

Mallory rummaged inside her purse and pulled her phone out, turning on the screen.

“7:42,” she said “I think you got time!”

Roberta sighed in relief, “Okay, awesome. Wanna have some coffee with me?” 

It was hard to make up another excuse, especially now she knew she had nothing to do for the following three or four hours. _It was Wednesday,_ she realized then, a pinch of adrenaline coursing through her at the thought she had forgotten, and the thought she had unknowingly done some things that could pass for her trying to impress somebody. But, come on, they had to cut her some slack. It was getting harder to act casual about it.

She shrugged “How to say no to that?” 

The scents of cream and sugar filled her nostrils, calming her. For some reason coffee breaks had always been exhilarating to her, almost like someone had bargained in carrying a plate of whiskey shots. She was thanking the extra energy they provided, she thanked the excuse they gave her so she didn’t have to do anything a couple of minutes. When Roberta came back with two steaming styrofoam cups and several packs of sugar, Mallory felt a part of herself floating in the air in pure bliss.

What? At least it wasn’t coke she was cheering over. 

“Ladies,” a voice greeted, making them both turn around.

Doctor Christensen was walking into the second floor staff break room by the side of his long-necked assistant, who looked equal parts “nosey homophobic aunt” and “that annoying fucking kid who always told on you when you didn’t do the homework”; Mallory had to take that very first sip and force it down. By the look in Roberta’s face, it was a shared feeling. 

“Morning” they mumbled at unison. 

“Lord, I spent a good couple hours dragged by a tow last night” he said, despite not being asked by absolutely anyone; his assistant, Brenda, looked back at them with boredom as if she was expecting someone to add anything. 

Mallory stirred the sugar in her cup with a small straw impatiently, demurely turning on her heels and pretending to examine the map of the United States, somewhere around the time she found Honolulu she could hear Daniel calling for her, it would have been a lie to say the look on her face was not one of annoyance. Mallory smoothed her hand over her collarbones, putting her coffee cup down, preparing herself to use some sort of excuse to wiggle out of that conversation and rush into her office. Had she brought any new books that week, again? Maybe she could busy herself and go back to Agatha Christie, maybe she could read over Vincent’s file once again and check it for any missing annotations.

She had only checked it three hundred and seventeen times before, anyway.

“—because we’re working on some new reformation programs and we need some assistance from the rest of the psych department,” he continued as she hadn’t really paid attention to the beginning of it “It’d be a four weeks course, eight hours for each week, I was thinking you and Antonella could take care of one of the groups while I took care of the other. Gave some group therapy sessions, sitting in a circle and all at, I take it you have a very particular skill to make otherwise hostile patients talk.”

“I only, you know, treat them human.” she deadpanned, knowing very well of some complaints addressed to Daniel due to some of his treatment choices “You’d be surprised of how well that works.”

Daniel frowned.

“Oh, I treat them human,” he laughed, if he was trying to play it off he was failing “It’s only we need to know the kind of people we’re dealing with at this place! We can’t go around making friends with everyone and blowing whistles at their pity parties if we want to stay sane, and out of trouble, some of these people are serious dangers for society. Ne’er-do-wells, really, we can’t risk ourselves to get too friendly with one of them and then have them at your footstep with a butcher knife wanting to be let in.”

“If you befriended them, why would they come for you with a butcher knife?” she asked with her tilted, Roberta behind her wasn’t sporting a different look. 

Daniel stammered, shaking like he had stuck his finger in a power outlet.

“I… I don’t know, maybe because you pissed them off, or something? Maybe they thought they could crash your couch when they got let out?”

Roberta sipped from her own cup with an amused look on her face “Then if they did, and they came to your place holding a knife is not killing you what they want, is taking you as a sidekick to one of their killing sprees.”

“Batmen to your Robins,” Mallory added.

“Richards to your Seth Geckos,” said Roberta.

Daniel waved his hands at them and gave them a scold, obviously not having foreseen that particular outcome “Alright, alright, cut it already. I get it, that made no sense.” 

Mallory had to hold onto her stomach, she was laughing harder than she should be. 

“It’s a _minimum-security prison_ , Daniel, I really don’t think anyone here is out to kill you.” she retorted, “If anything, one of them might want to clone your credit cards or maybe steal your car!”

“And that thing is as good dead now,” Roberta lamented, oddly enough she liked it.

“Fine, yeah, whatever,” he mumbled.

At last, Brenda opened her mouth to talk.

“I was thinking of—”

And that’s when she heard the alarm going off. Startling, high-flown, and terrible.

* * *

Chaos. 

It seeped from the walls, it dripped on the floors, it clashed into the air conducts, it burned through his lungs. Duncan was unsure whether or not he could see past that chaos, but he tried to, he certainly did. The moment he listened to the alarm blaring across the halls, all he could think of was getting back to his cell, and getting fast; perhaps it was the pitiful mindset of a man caged, of one coerced into submission trapped in metallic walls like a lab rat, those halls were the pipes, and it all was a part of the same circuit—what was the the prize, he didn’t know, be still he kept scratching them, he kept scratching those goddamn fucking pipes.

“Move!” a voice barked to his right. 

Duncan groaned and felt the wall sinking into his side, behind him men screamed and pushed each other, so he could tell when he looked over his shoulder and witnessed the rumble. What in the fuck was going on? He had listened to the alarm and rushed out the showers, still wreathed in the thick scents of soap and shampoo, which he had unfortunately left behind, his hair was still partly wet, the back of his undershirt was moist with the tiny droplets of water he didn’t have the chance to dry off. 

Regardless, he paid little mind to it before he kept on running, scurrying by pressed to the wall trying to avoid any unnecessary contact with others. He couldn’t recognize any face: tattoos, piercings, all common features from the precinct but none he could recognize as amiable, until he spotted a man smaller than the rest; he looked troubled, concerned, terrified for his life if you will. He was not kind of man that was there for the same reasons as the others, he definitely stood out from the running crowd like a sore fucking thumb. 

“Hey!” he called out “Hey, you! Glasses!”

The man turned around, somewhat fearful. Duncan had lowered his pace, trying to keep up with him as they ran down the hall. He had very short black hair, curly, a rather full beard and thick rimmed glasses. At last he got his attention, and he was thankful about it.

“What happened?” he asked.

The man struggled to talk, run, and breathe at the same time but somehow he coped “No idea! I think there was a fight that got out of hand at the cafeteria and a guard was injured, or something!” he huffed coiling onto himself as a particularly fat inmate came in between them “Once they got him on the ground he got jumped. Some tried to help, some tried to hurt him the more! All I know is it all got out of hand, it’s a mutiny.” 

Duncan felt a chill going up the length of his back, settling at the nape of his neck like someone was toying with their fingers on his neck; squeezing, not quite pinching. He was supposed to be taking breakfast, but his vanity had gotten the best of him and he had chosen to get showered first. In a way he thought he would have to thank her for it, for making him want to look and feel his best for her, to impress her in a way. As much as he could all dressed in beige, black had always suited him better. Duncan stopped right on his tracks.

_Mallory. Where was she?_

He knew she worked on the west wing of the third floor, a small confined space close to one of the restrooms, a space untouched by the filth that surrounded them. A safe keep. But he didn’t know where she was at that moment, he didn’t know where all those men were headed; things in prison were never nice when an injured guard was involved, and she was most likely safe. But he had learned Mallory was prone to take a step past the yellow line, and a feeling of terror held him prisoner at the thought of her getting hurt, especially if she was getting hurt by others for he knew what they were capable of. 

His disorbitated eyes were roaming the space wildly, the crowd had dissipated, it was suddenly easier to move, he could perfectly get back to his cell and free himself from the tension and the fright from that sudden disaster. But despite it all, he knew he wouldn’t be satisfied. Not until he’d seen her. 

So he turned on his heels, and took the stairs.

* * *

“Goddammit, slow down!” she hissed between her teeth. 

“Howell, I am not quite sure if you’ve noticed, but we’re at a state of emergency!” 

She shot him a gelid glare, who did she need to bribe to be given the green light to sink a key into that man’s eye? Doctor Christensen was perfectly aware of their heights, Mallory and Roberta rushed behind him up the walls and into the third floor right wing, otherwise identified as the source of all chaos. Psychiatrists were not given the privilege of carrying radios or keeping track of the levels and guards unless they asked to, unless they had something very much important to do. They were running blindly and most likely right into the mouth of the wolf _—This is so stupid,_ she thought. 

_Great, we’re disarmed and confused!_ What a better idea than running right into the root of the problem with no protection whatsoever for the sake of getting the hot scoop on the gossip. That’s how he made it all look. Mallory held helpless onto Bertie’s hand, and Bertie responded with a nervous squeeze.

“I heard them say they harmed a guard!”

“Why are you taking us there, then? Someone could be armed, someone could be trying to lure the staff in!” she cried, brushing the front strands of her hair away from her face.

Daniel shouted back at her, face ugly and contracted “Because someone could need out help! Someone could be seriously injured!”  
  


“This is the country with the greatest amount of massive shootings in the world, of fucking _course_ someone could be seriously injured! And what you want is to take us there without knowing whether or not we’re taking _a bullet to the fucking HEAD!_ ”

“Mallory, calm down,” Bertie urged, tugging at her hand harder. 

The touch of her hand was grounding, reassuring, it brought her back from the dark place she’d swum into, nonetheless she found herself fuming, jaw clenched and nostrils flared. Daniel Christensen was, if anything a highly incompetent man. Having to follow his command, foolish at times and without a choice at others, was enough of a headache for her to deal with it and to top it being manhandled around. 

The trio approached the entrance of the cafeteria and Mallory was immediately taken aback by a dark, tumultuous energy that was leaking out of that place like tar staining the floors. With careful steps she moved forward, gazing over her shoulder sheepishly at Roberta every couple of seconds, she could feel the arch of the gates standing tall and inexorable, the paint peeled off showing hints of rust lying underneath; she had never been to the cafeteria, matter of fact she had only circled that floors to get to the stairs and having her around the gym or visitation areas was simply an oddity. I felt strange to wander through those ominous grounds, the only way she could describe it was the same feeling she had experienced three years back when she visited her cousin Jane in Chicago and had to go through the subway station with her at three in the morning, the city lying still, threats aplenty lying ahead. 

Every fiber in her body knew she was not supposed to be there. 

Yet there she was. 

Daniel was the first to speak, the expression on his face was utterly disengaged, the look alone made him look fifteen years old; so she pried in carefully, every step she took felt like it weighed two and a half tons. 

“Shit…” he mumbled, his gaze fixed forward.

There was a guard speaking to a suited man, his hands were hanging from the loops of his pants from where Mallory could notice hung a heavy looking gun holster. The guard she had seen before, could be labelled an old timer, type of guy that usually abused of those men that were under his “care”, as for the other man, she recognized him as Todd Fuller, director of the Airway Heights Correction Center. 

“—one of the inmates got in an altercation with another, Murphy, I think. Something about him owing him money, or something like that, the guy had made a makeshift knife with a goddamn chicken bone and tried to poke a hole through the other guy’s neck.”

“How, on Earth, does an inmate end up with a chicken bone knife in his hands? As far as I can remember it was terminally forbidden to serve anything at the cafeteria that could be used, or so, be turned, into an insidious weapon.” Todd roared, the sound was vibrant, rash, Mallory could tell he had no time whatsoever to be dealing with that level of negligence “Who’s in charge of the menu here?”

“Price.” a second suited man to his right uttered.

“Price…” he repeated.

_Someone’s losing their job,_ she thought. 

“I want Price in the line, and I want all of you to clean up this mess! Were the other inmates detained?” again, the nameless man to his side nodded his head “Good. I want them all in solitary, no permission to share any common areas, no visits, and no calls.”

Daniel walked forward but Roberta and Mallory fell back, for they knew better. They were there with no excuse, no reasoning, no authorization, and by the looks of the scattered guards and countless faces she could not recognize she knew perfectly fine it was the worst time possible to bargain into someone else’s business. For a psychiatrist, a man of science, Daniel was awfully, painfully unaware. He kept his strut confident and lively as he approached the director and in the bright blue eyes of the latter she could see about enough for a warning to brace herself for impact; it was almost painful to look at but she couldn’t tear away her gaze. It was a car wreck.

“Mr. Fuller, I—”

“What, in fresh hell, are you doing here, Christensen?” Todd bellowed

“I was headed to the—”

“Six inmates started a fight right here, at the cafeteria, three of them are mutilated and so are two of my guards. It took all this time to locate and detain the other three. The common areas are a mess, I got inmates running up and down the stairs, at least two more staff members with minor injuries and half the staff of this centre hanging on my back wanting answers as to why, exactly, I let this happened.”

“I don’t have to deal with other workers getting injured because you felt like snooping around.” he continued to scold him.

Ever the gracious saviour she was, it was Roberta over Mallory who chose to step in, in front of the other’s bewildered eyes. Mallory felt almost forced to grab her back the arm to keep her back but she knew there was no use in trying, in the slightest, to tame her character; not like she was much of a push-over herself, it was rather the fear of stepping out of line at her place of work; now that was something she was praying not to happen. 

“Forgive me, sir. I believe what Daniel was trying to say is we were headed _towards our respective offices_ when the alarms went off,” demure as only herself could fake to be, Roberta seemed to pranced into the conversation in the right tone for Todd slowly relaxed his face out of that frown he had kept from the moment they first saw him “We were all having coffee when it all happened, this just so happened to be on the way to her office,” said Bertie pointing towards Mallory with her head.

Todd looked her over, most likely deciding she in the right. Mallory felt smaller next to her, but at least she wasn’t burning of shame thanks to Daniel anymore, so much for someone who started her day so confidently.

“Thanks for the clarification, then, Miss…” 

“Sayre. Roberta Sayre. I’m Dr. Shapiro’s assistant,” the woman outstretched her hand and Todd shook it firmly, without squeezing too much from the looks of it “This is Dr. Mallory Howell, one of the centre’s psychiatrists, her office is on the left wing of this floor.” 

“You shouldn’t be here” this time, addressing both of them, he didn’t sound half as menacing “You could have been run over by the mob or one of those lunatics who were running around with knives could have injured as they did the others.” 

“Were other inmates around when the fight began?” Mallory asked, then, feeling her own voice like a distant and foreign sound.

Todd nodded, clenching his jaw and looking back at what Mallory identified as smeared traces of blood, she could recognize the outlines of shoe prints and hands on it painting the floor in a slick shade of red. Arterial blood had a different tone to it, she remembered, and the sight of it made her retch. 

“The rest of the inmates having breakfast, I’m afraid.”

Mallory’s face ran completely out of color.

If the sight of blood was enough to make her recoil before, now it shot cold streams of terror through her veins like they were ice, the scene came to life all too vividly and the images she saw she couldn’t stop until they had already taken her mind hostage. The struggling, the pushing and pulling, the bruising and cutting; she was surprised she hadn’t thrown up at the spot. She could feel Roberta pressing her palm flat softly against the space between her shoulder blades, she mouthed (Or did she whisper? Mallory couldn’t tell, her ears were beeping loudly, out of sudden) an “are you okay?” to her that was overlooked by Daniel and Brenda, who had finally decided to join them. 

“I…” she stuttered, still looking at the blood “Where are the others? The injured?” 

Todd cleared his throat “Down on the second floor, at the infirmary.”

Her legs moved before her tongue could, following Todd’s words almost on command and breaking apart from Roberta a little too harshly for her taste. She was called for, given warnings, some in whispers and others in shouts, the space around her still felt all too unfamiliar and brush of her hands on the rest of her skin burned like dry ice.

Weeks prior Duncan Shepherd had walked into line waiting for making his first meal of the day, and in return he had received one of the harshest news in his life, drained himself of any semblance of color his skin bore and hit the ground like a stone, those events would later lead him to her, to the one person who was supposed to be taking care of him now. She knew of his promptness, of his disciplined nature, a man of a routine (rather imprisoned by it) who, for no reason at all, would be anywhere else around eight in the morning than the commissary.

If he was there when Hell broke loose, there was no reason for her to think he hadn’t been injured, or worse. She pictured him, looking at the others bitterly while he bit down at a piece of bread and complained over the menu for the hundredth timely, forcing down a gulp of lukewarm apple juice wishing he was eating a bowl of granola and drinking freshly brewed coffee, instead, when the first scream pierced the air.

Before they came for him, next. 

Mallory was rushing through the few scattered people that were still around the scene, those who shot strange looks at her for it was out of place to see a member of the staff seemingly running for her life after the worst part was over, she went for the stairs completely disregarding her office down the hall, and as she reached one of the midlevels in between the steps she felt her shoe getting caught up in the metallic edge of one of them, twisting her foot in an awkward angle for a second and making her wince.

“Shit,” she hissed under her breath.

Mallory recovered quickly from it, and kept on running, the second floor of Airway Heights consisted in the first batch of prisoner living quarters, the infirmary, a couple of offices (including Doctor Christensen’s) the indoor courtyard, and the gym. Once she reached the bottom of the stairs she was somewhat comforted by the lack of jumble in the courtyard, just a few guards speaking between themselves and a good amount of inmates they were surely trying to beeline back into their cells, some others meandered aimlessly, others rushed through the crowd.

Including Duncan.

“Oh my god!” she cried, hand pressed to her chest when she stopped merely a few steps away from him, Mallory felt as though she would regurgitate her heart out at any second “Duncan, what are you doing down here!?”

“T-The entire floor was being evacuated, they found the men that stabbed the guards near my cell, they said it was safer down here.” he panted, his chest was coming up and down erratically and it seemed as though he swallowed with difficulty, probably with a dry throat “At least that’s what the others are saying…”

Mallory shook her head no in disbelief, not exactly at what he was saying.

“I thought you would be having breakfast when it all happened,” she also was struggling to breathe, her hand fell to a side just after she was sure she wouldn’t have a heart attack “There was all this blood on the floor, I was mortified, the whole place looked like a butcher shop!”

In the middle of the panic and chaos she saw his breath relenting, he was looking directly at her, deep into her eyes, somewhat in surprise but calmer than she could guess they were before, his features were panned over by different sensation altogether, as were hers.

Relief. 

When he spoke again his voice was lower and not as rugged.

“Are you okay?” he asked her, his word were drenched in legitimate concern.

She nodded, awkwardly, “I am, just a little shaken.” 

Both of them turned upwards and around when they heard the rustling of ankle chains and cuffs as well as the rumbling from other guards hissing profanities and pushing the other inmates around, they could see them through the outer portion of the hall that faced the void, fenced by half a gate that reached somewhere around their waists, the rustling of metal was unnerving and the maddened looks on the inmates’ faces would forever be engraved in her mind, never again would she underestimate the labeling of a minimum security facility. Their shirts, they were splashed in red, some of their faces weren’t any better.

Perhaps they planned on an escape but, honestly, what was the rate of success?

“My goodness…” 

Duncan stood a little closer, mostly to look at the inmates a little better, try and see if he knew them or not; he must have been as shaken as she was, after all he had escaped the mess by luck and the whole thing must have felt as surreal to him. He swallowed thick again, she noticed, averting her gaze from him the second she realized he was turning around and he had caught her looking right at him. 

Shame sunk in her upper abdomen, in a pool of blood, and there it settled.

Standing next to him that way so far removed from their righteous dynamic and so out of place as a whole felt awkward and unbecoming, there at the same state of nervousness and confusion it was almost as if they were equals, like their titles and circumstances had been wiped clean from their slates leaving behind nothing but humans reacting to fear, running unbridled into the unknown if that meant they would be reunited, of course (of that last part) she was unaware. The warmth oozing from his skin was dizzying, especially to her who felt as though she got bathed in ice.

“That’s a lot of blood,” he acknowledged, something in his tone and his reaction made her realize he was familiar with this kind of situation, but none of this magnitude “I would be surprised if someone didn’t die at that commissary.”

“The floor sure made it look like it,” she agreed, both of their attentions partly fixed on the prisoners, and on each other. 

At that moment a group of guards made their down the staircase, they were carrying someone injured on a stretcher and Mallory craned her head trying to see who it was, there was too much blood in the way to tell, exactly, so much it coated the entire of the male’s face and part of his chest. Her curiosity did not pass unnoticed as two of the guards approached them promptly, most likely wondering why there was a doctor standing in the middle of the courtyard looking at the injured with one of the inmates.

“Are you alright, ma’am? Do you need any help?” the older of the two called out.

Mallory felt her mouth twitch in distaste _. Ma’am? I could be your daughter._

“I’m fine, thank you.” she bit back.

He narrowed his eyes between her and Duncan, who stood next to her looking rather bored “Why are you standing here right now? A fight took place not long ago, the whole place is a mess right now and it’d be best if you stayed in you office. The director is debating whether or not he should send part of his staff home for the day.”

“It’s not a department shop we’re running, sir,” she dragged out fighting the urge to roll her eyes at him “It’s a prison. You can’t just clock out for the day and expect it all to be alright by the next morning; I’m a psychiatrist, if anything, I’m needed now more than ever.” 

The guard gave her a nod, clearly vexed by her looseness of tongue.

“Alright, then, I will take this from you so you can be on your way.” he spoke about Duncan, this time, taking one step on his direction, referring to him as though it was package to seal and deliver rather than a person.

Mallory could see from afar the rest of the inmates at the other side of the courtyard being pushed and yelled at as they were forced into a beeline like they were livestock on their way to the gutter; if the guards were an army of bastard before, now more than ever they would feel entitled to act less humane than ever. 

She wasn’t going to let Duncan be one of the pushed and shoved. 

Her mouth twitched again, and this time she put a foot in between them, blocking the guard from getting any closer to Duncan. The guard that came beside him, a younger man who she had never seen before, therefore must had been new blood, bit back at snicker at Mallory’s defiance. The master and protegé dynamic was yet to settle between the two, that was for sure. 

“This inmate is my patient, sir, and I’m afraid this whole thing has hindered our session of the day a little too much for my liking, thus, I’m kind of running out of patience. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll take him to my office. If what Director Fuller wants is to clock us out early the least I can do is tend to him before he does so.” 

He raised his eyebrows at her, almost mockingly, “Do you even have the authorization to do that, _ma’am?_ ” the last bit had a derogatory edge to it.

Mallory did not yield in the slightest at his poor attempt at intimidation, rather she spoke in an annoyingly honeyed voice daring him to dull her plans any further.

“I am following orders, in fact, and you can ask the head of the Psychiatry Department if you’re so curious. Dial the Director himself, if you want, as far as I’m concerned Dr. Christensen was still by his side when I left him.” 

His eyes were emotionless, and in return she only got silence. She had won.

As a sign of surrender, the guard unclasped a pair of cuffs from his belt and handed them to Mallory who snatched them swiftly out of his hands, then she took the key and she stuffed it into her dress’ pocket, turning quickly on her heels to face Duncan without giving the guards even the pleasure of taking their presence in consideration. 

Back they went to help the others, shouting and the couple lambs astray that hadn’t gotten in queue yet and assisting the poor man who was wailing out of consciousness with every second that passed. Blood could only run so cold.

When she turned to Duncan, then, he obediently stretched out his hands and let her clasp the cuffs around his wrists; despite having tried to act nonchalant about it, Mallory could feel him gazing up at her when she quietly apologized; the action could be read as her being embarrassed by having to follow the protocol and chain him like an animal, in actuality she did so because, aside from that, she was embarrassed he had to feel the ice in her hands when she touched him. If he had noticed, he had been a perfect gentleman, and kept quiet.

Duncan was the one to take a step forward and Mallory soon followed, stretching the space in between them and the guards until they began to walk in parallel lines. The man who had stopped her and his partner were now carrying the stretcher where the bloodied guard lied, her breath hitched in her throat and Duncan turned around at the second to see what had startled her so profoundly.

Underneath all those bandages she could finally recognize the man whose eye had been stabbed through, someone of proportions big enough he had to be carried by four men at the same time.

Alfred. Weak sounds came from his mouth, his hand hanging limp from a side of the stretcher, the cut had pierced through the lid and socket, blade dragging downwards onto his cheekbone; if an eye was ever in there, now it was impossible to tell. Half his face had turned into a parade of grated meat. Mallory hoped maybe he would recognize her, then she realized it was highly unlikely, for he was on the verge of passing out from the pain, if he already hadn’t.

Another wave of sickness washed through her stomach and Mallory had to force herself not to look, keeping her attention on the surface of the greenish-gray steps while she held onto the railing with shaky hands.

Behind her, Duncan looked over his shoulder with a little self-sufficient smile.

* * *

She turned the machinery with an unforeseen precision the moment the second metallic door of her office came to a close, it was a heavy and dull sound that echoed into the small space of her antefoyer and caught Duncan’s attention entirely, he looked at the locks turning and shutting with the curiosity of a child, and spoke in kind.

“I didn’t know the door had all those locks, I didn’t notice it the first couple of times I came here.”

Mallory sighed, “Well, the last couple of times you came here the door was already open and I wasn’t worried about a psychotic prison killer coming after us to slice our throats open with a knife made out of a chicken bone.”

Duncan cocked an eyebrow curiously at her, dropped it the second her eyes laid upon him, Mallory still looked troubled by what she saw downstairs; he didn’t really blame her.

“Yeah, I always meant to say something about that…” he trailed off now looking at the ground and stretching his sore fingers as much as his cuffs allowed him to, Duncan was aware he almost said the next words with regret “...although I did tell you about that fucking menu.”

“Language”

“Sorry.” 

Being in Mallory’s sumptuously decorated space, however foreign it once felt, now gave him solace. It had been relieving enough to see she was safe and sound, even if her hair was entirely disheveled and her expression remained a bit shaken, the fact he was sharing that safekeep with her while the world came crashing down around them felt like nothing short of a blessing. Duncan was ecstatic, her display of protectiveness from earlier had made his chest swell with pride to the point he was surprised he hadn’t reached forward and—against all his better judgment—brought her into a kiss. 

But that would have spoiled all his already fragile plans now, wouldn’t it? 

Despite it all, he saw things for what they were, saw her for what she was. Mallory had put her professionalism first, over absolutely everything, and she hadn’t hesitated in fighting those who were attempting to commit an injustice, unlike everyone else who saw him as either a beast or a pawn, Mallory had treated him like a human. Her hands might have been cold, but her touch was soft, and for that he was forever grateful.

It surprised him a little to see her walking further into her office, passed her desk, into the second interviewing area where she kept her couches and her bookshelves, a small mahogany table had an equally small knitted tablecloth right under where she had her coffee machine and her set of cups and coffee pots. 

Duncan had chosen not to make assumptions or take liberties so he stayed at the threshold and waited for her to say anything, Mallory looked behind her and found him frozen in place holding onto his own hands like a kid at the principal’s office.

Mallory stifled a smile and motioned towards the couches with her head.

“Come right in, Duncan. I think you need to get a little comfortable after today, and I think I should fix you something before our session, too, wouldn’t like you to pass out for running around on an empty stomach.”

A rush of warmth washed right through him and made the skin of his face feel hot enough to burn, his heart was threatening with beating out of his mouth for a second time that morning. Although that could also be the fasting, after all she was right, he _had_ been running on an empty stomach. 

“Sure. Thanks.” he whispered, carefully taking a seat on one of her settees.

When he did, he detailed the shape he had been missing for the past week. Although, as soon as he did, he was quick to notice something aside from her undone ponytail was out of place.

“You’re limping.” he mused.

Mallory turned around and seemed to become aware of it only once he had pointed it out, looking down at her feet and wincing in pain “I… Yes, I think I am.” 

With careful steps she made her way to the settee opposite to his, she was carrying a box of butter cookies on her hand he supposed she had gotten out of her small cupboard for him and also a small cup of pudding she took out of her mini-fridge. 

He watched her lowering her small frame onto the cushion very slowly, her face contracted in both concentration and pain, Duncan was tempted to stand up and offering her a helping (cuffed) hand. He didn’t, he was not that unwise, but he did lean forward waiting for her to show the slightest hint of discomfort.

She chuckled breathlessly, “I’m sorry, I guess running in fear was not in my plans when I chose these shoes this morning.”

“Did someone step on your foot?” he asked.

Mallory shook her head “No, I slipped I was…” she took a pause, taking a deep breath as though she was debating whether or not to say something out loud “...running down the stairs, my foot got caught up in one of the steps.”

“Do you think you sprained it?” he motioned towards her reddened ankle with his chin.

“No, no, it’s just a bit bruised, that’s all, I tied the straps too tight.”

Mallory placed the box carefully on the coffee table and began to untie the straps of her high heeled shoes, Duncan had been mindlessly unaware of the steady clicking of her steps beside him. It pained him to think she had been so far into what was happening that she ignored that, to an extent, she had gotten injured too. 

He watched her small fingers undo the ties tremulously, noticing her nails were painted in a deep shade of navy blue that matched perfectly with the color of her dress, one of her pointer fingernails was chapped, most likely from all the mess from earlier. She also had two rings, one spiral that went around her ring finger, and a moon trapped in what looked like a miniature version of an iron fence, a couple inches under her ruined nail. Duncan took a deep breath and shifted lightly on his seat, seeing how she unwrapped the soft-looking skin of her ankles to him, it definitely looked a bit abused to him, a single print with the shape of her strap circled around her, almost like she had been carrying a ball and chain. Then she toed out of her shoes, revealing she was wearing the shade tone of blue there, as well, her feet were small and her toes were smaller—they looked almost like a doll’s. 

Duncan imagined his hands, then, running smooth over them and placing a kiss to both of her bridges while tracing shapes on her ankles, smoothing his hand hand back down until he reached her heels and placed them gently back on the ground. The collar of the wifebeater he wore under his tan shirt felt too tight out of sudden, he was hoping nothing else would, too.

Another wave of warmth ran right through him when he caught a glimpse of an intricate scripture on one of her feet, although he was unable to see what it said. 

“I am so sorry…” she mewled, “I look positively awful right now, I just think I won’t be able to walk if I keep those on another minute. I am hoping I won’t look much like a savage and you will be able to pretend I’m not walking barefoot around my office.”

Mallory looked innocently up at him and he realized it was the first time she ever did. “I’m sorry,” she repeated in a thread of voice.

“Please, don’t be…” he urged softly.

“I’m not wearing those types of shoes to work ever again,” she said, mostly to herself, and chuckled timidly.

He thought of the show he just gave him, and the way her toes curled as in ecstasy when she stood in them, the way it brought the attention up her ankles and calves. _Please do_ , he thought.

Duncan followed her with his eyes as she moved like a hopeless boy following a stranger who had offered herself to walk him back home, in a way he felt as lost and hopeless; the entire ordeal was, if anything, denigrating to witness and to experience, anxiety tugged harshly at the centre of his chest, hunger turned his mind hazy and the entire act of being near her with no prior preparation, no previous inner monologue to still himself, no plan, it was terrifying. It was exciting, too, fear had sweat had made a mess out of the fragrance she was wearing, she had smelled of pear and white roses before, now the scents were laced with bergamot and black musk. 

Her voice was a frail beacon guiding him through his lightheadedness. 

“I’m gonna brew us some coffee, alright?” she announced while setting the machine to work, Duncan thanked she was looking away so he could tug at the corner of his mouth with his teeth; that line in particular felt terribly domestic to him “You should eat up, in the meantime, go ahead.” 

He wondered if she had noticed. 

Duncan reached forward to the table and removed the plastic from the top of the caramel pudding she had given him. His mouth began to water, embarrassingly, he could not remember when was the last time he ate something that didn’t come from a prison trail, something as substantial or as appealing. The taste was even better, it was impossible for him not to hum at it. 

“My guard got an eye poked out,” he said in casual fashion while stirring his food. 

“Yeah, I…” Mallory hesitated, “I guess we’re gonna have to get you a new one.”

She came back circling the couches, trailing her hand over one of her settees to steady herself, “I’m sorry you had to witness all that.”

“I didn’t like him,” he admitted weightlessly, yet at the shadow that fell over her face Duncan inwardly cursed himself and shrugged his shoulders before continuing “But poor Arnold, he didn’t deserving getting mutilated that way over doing his job.”

“Alfred, his name is Alfred Wiśniewski. And yes, I… You…” Mallory motioned formlessly into the air with a rather unsettled face, “Had you _seen_ anything like this happening at Airway Heights before, Duncan?”

He shook his head no “No, not during the time I’ve been here, can’t say I have. But I supposed maybe you had, as you have been here the longest, right?” 

“I’ve only been working here for nine months now” she confessed.

“ _Nine months?_ ” he asked, she nodded in reply “Wow, I would have guessed you had years here.” 

Mallory laughed.

“No, actually no, I…” the brunette shifted on her seat and gave a fleeting look at the coffee machine, most likely checking if it was brewing, “I started working here after I was done doing my internships, I hadn’t worked elsewhere before, let alone a pri—” her face scrunched, “—you know, at a detention centre.”

Duncan smiled while collecting a spoonful of pudding, flicking his gaze from her to his container leisurely. 

“You can say prison, you know?” he teased, “It’s not like we aren’t familiar with the term.” 

It was strange seeing her that way, her guard down, acting like there wasn’t a professional boundary in between them; but he received the gift, regardless. Mallory rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically, shrinking onto herself.

For him it was endearing to no end realizing that, when unaware and stripped from all her pretences, Mallory acted almost like a child; the youth of her soul shone through every pore of her skin, “Right, you’re right. Sorry.” He could fall helplessly for it.

“Is it very hard as a new psychiatrist to work at a prison like this one?” 

The tone of his voice was inquisitive without being crass or harsh, there was no concealed ill intention or trepidation of any sort behind it. Mallory appeared to think for a minute, again at the time being she was floating between what she had to say and what she wanted to say, what he was ought to know about her and what he was not.

“It’s not as hard as I expected, really. At the end of the day most of the patients are handed to Dr. Shapiro; she’s, like, the patron _saint_ of Airway Heights’ inmate corps, most of them ask to be treated by her.”

Duncan furrowed his brow, “Why wouldn’t they want to be treated by you?”

“Because I’m Dr. Christensen’s lackey, unfortunately…” she stretched the corners of her mouth in a funny little grimace, but he knew it wasn’t one to laugh at, she was venting “...He has had issues with almost every patient he has treated and after her promotion the cases, or lack thereof, he left behind were handed down to me.”

“I was supposed to be one of his patients,” he came to the realization, his voice a couple octaves higher.

Mallory nodded off, lacing her fingers over her knees “You were supposed to be one of his patients.” 

He was glad he didn’t turn out to be. 

“And have you lived here in Spokane, all your life?” he asked with a small tilt of his head as who shyly peeks under a curtain.

“Not really, I moved to Washington right before I started working here,” she informed him, “I come from a small town named Stockbridge, in Massa, where everyone knows everyone and apparently nothing really happens.” he saw her smile at the memory, demurely so.

“I’ve always lived in the DC,” he began, even without having being asked “Washington is all I’ve ever known asides from an occasional trip overseas or the summers I spent with my family in the Hamptons, and my time at boarding school.”

“But you were born in North Carolina,” she said, sounding more like a question.

Duncan widened her eyes at her, a bit, Mallory possession that sort of information wasn’t something he had foreseen, and by the looks of it, it had slipped from her mouth with no prior warning. If something could become the embodiment of the phrase “maybe I should have kept that to myself”, it would have certain be the look on her face. 

If anything it made him purse his lips in a broad smile.

“I was,” he confirmed “I’m guessing you also know my birthday is in a couple of weeks.”

“Well, yes, I mean. All of it is in your file.”

“Sure, that’s exactly what I talk about!” 

“Sure…” she trailed off.

Was he suddenly insane or was Mallory… flustered? She took on averting his gaze and shifting awkward checking up on her coffee, turning off the brewer when all the content was inside the jar, she was dead silent and neither of them tried to say something for a minute, Duncan himself wanting to hear again the sound of her voice even if it was just to say something completely stuff. The sound of it had been his favorite within those concrete walls, it was just cruel for her to deprive him of such. 

“Why weren’t you at the commissary, Duncan?” she blurted out, out of sudden.

He cleared his throat “I was in the showers, I only realized something was happening when I was finishing getting dressed,” he explained, “I was seizing the lack of crowd for a moment, there, is odd to find the space empty for a change.” 

“Of course, I take you you’re not the biggest fan of sharing spaces”

“Not the biggest fan of being welcomed with a beating, either.”

Mallory’s eyes widened.

“You were beaten in the showers?”

He nodded, clenching his jaw and avoiding looking at her in the eye.

“It was my first week, apparently they weren’t too happy with my attitude and decided I needed to get a little shaken to get back into track and learn how things worked in this place.”

“Why wasn’t that added to your file, also?”

“Because…” Duncan struggled to find the words, and realized it was best if he was honest “...an asshole guard was one of the people involved in it. Two of them, in fact, I was terrified I would end up getting raped by those bastards but I guess they just wanted to spook me a little, call it an Airway christening.”

To this day Duncan was incapable of going to the showers unless he was entirely sure the space was empty for the moment. Fists sinking deep into his ribs and blood and vomit covering his teeth, the cold wet feeling of the tiles and the running shower keeping him from passing out. It was indeed an unpleasant memory.

Besides the fact it had been torturous having gotten kicked directly in the cock.

Not like Mallory needed to know those details. 

But she was enraged, regardless, with her back to him and rustling the cups and tossing containers around when she spoke again, slamming the jar back into the brewer harshly and slamming the top lid of it shut. 

“Well I hope at least they were held responsible for it, somehow! They cannot expect to engage in that kind of abuse and walking unpunished like they were above all law or some shit!”

_“Language.”_

Mallory looked quickly over her shoulder in a way he knew his comment had the right effect on her.

Then she came towards him again, coffee cup in hand, and she gently placed it between his hands the same way she had done the day they first met. His fingers brushed hers, they traced all the way up to her rings, to her chipped nail polish, to the niveous surface her skin was that still held cold. Duncan felt himself grow uninhibited, but all at once to allow themselves to feel their hands was about as strong and intimidating as holding onto her waist and pulling her in would have been.

She didn’t pull away.

“You clench your jaw when you are stressed,” she observed.

“And your hands get cold when you’re nervous,” he replied. 

This time when she pulled away she did it gently, softly, almost with hesitation. Duncan was surely getting his hopes up by doing so, and it was only foolish to take another step without measuring the consequences; would it always be like this? So frustrating, so painful? Having to read between the lines and debate whether or not she had meant it, whether or not is was okay for him to act a certain way? 

“You know, it doesn’t always have to be like this between us,” he let his tongue do before his teeth can stop it, he shrugged and Mallory her head curiously at him “Be so formal, and cold, at least not today after all that’s happened.”

Mallory shifts her weight from one to the other foot, one of her small hands has reached the other and is toying absentmindedly with her spiral ring, he tries to forced himself not to think she’s doing it because she needs to, because she’s nervous.

“I know,” he continued “That you must hate working here as well as dealing with all the people you have to deal with on the lately, I saw you talking to Alfred, I saw you talking to that guard that wanted to take me away. They pretend to belittle, to make you do the heavy labor, to deal with the loads they don’t wanna deal with.”

“You know you are not a load just because I as assigned to your case,” she reminded him softly, partly interrupting his own little speech.

“As well as you know nobody truly likes me here, either way” he confessed, shrugging, “I can be your friend if you will be mine, Mallory, and you can try and dissect me like a frog all you like. All I want is to talk to someone like I wasn’t just a subject or experiment or more of a paria than I already feel.” 

She scolded him.

“I won’t become friends with you just because you’re lonely!”

“Fine,” he smiled, “Then become friends with me for my pleasant company.”

Mallory sighed, the hazel it her eyes was burning right through him as if she could try and pry into his mind to find his real intentions. The silence between them stretched for a couple ghostly second, to the point he was certain this would lead him to end up at Dr. Shapiro’s office rather than hers, next week.

But then she shook her head, and smiled. The sight of it made him relive all of those hopeless reveries of his, in front of him was the delicate, ever-curious girl he would have stumbled on somewhere in DC walking out of a bookshop; the one he would have coerced into having coffee with him and whose hair brushed his forearms somewhere in the back of some small café as she saw him feeding her one cheesy compliment after the other. 

Oh, the sweet, blind innocence of those who are yet to know, and the intoxicating taste of mindless hope.

“Are you going to make me regret this, Duncan?”

He smirked.

“How dare you even saying that?” 

She looked back down at her tiny bare feet to conceal her laugh, a strand of hair falling carelessly over her precious face, he found the sight almost unnerving. Just like they were fog he felt her tar black walls dissipating and turning into smoke, melting into the nothingness not to ever return; from that moment on he was sure every lovely little look she shot his way—be it in disapproval, in happiness, in fear—he would treasure, for they were the one thing she could never take from him. 

Why, she could take her attention, take her time, take back her words. What was going to erase what she made him feel with every unintentional gesture? Where would she be hiding after he’d seen her every corner? Her chest fell and rose, the taste of victory was pending sweet in the air, sweet in his mouth when he took on one of her cookies and bit, sweet in his soul when he felt himself being let in. 

That’s how they birthed most disasters, with a seemingly innocent gesture.


	9. Pine Febreze

These states of introspection were becoming awfully common, she was afraid.

They might have matched with the current weather and her apartment’s particularly shitty lighting but sure as hell, they didn’t match cleaning sessions or ankle braces. Mallory dragged her bare feet around her apartment thankful, at least, of the cold wooden floors for they allowed her feet to glide over the surface rather than forcing her to rise and put her foot back down; she had underestimated the power of that treacherous step, the motherfucker was hurting. _« God, how long will it take for these fucking painkillers to take an effect? »_ she muttered to herself, feeling the soft sniffing of her dog’s snout on her hand.

“Daisy girl…” she slurred affectionately, scratching her head.

It was 7:42 in the evening, exactly twelve hours later from when she last checked the time, the last time she checked the time she did to tell Roberta they still had time for coffee, and that brief coffee break had ended in disaster, but that part she knew already. Right now she was moseying about her living room, cleaning rag and duster in hand, her target fixed on her helpless bookshelf; there would be no survivors, not a speck of dust would be left alive. She would make absolutely sure of it. 

_Put your head on my shoulder_

_Hold me in your arms, baby_

_Squeeze me oh-so-tight_

_Show me that you love me too_

Delilah Howell’s good ol’ records had been put to a good use since the night before, when Mallory found them layered between her old patterned sweaters and a couple of varsity jackets she had acquired throughout her academic years out of sheer impulse, most likely wanting to live her All-American high school girl dream or something, dusty yet somewhat untouched like they’ve been thrown between her things mistakenly.

The smell of them, a mix of naphthalene and Delilah’s perfume, still lingered on their covers, so much so Mallory handled them with extreme care as if they would turn to dust, also, had she held too tightly to them; the way they played, she could have sworn her grandmother was dancing around her, she could still see her red nails glistening underneath her lamp post light and the faint scent of her Pall Mall’s with their blue smoke, swirling in the air. 

_Put your lips next to mine, dear_

_Won't you kiss me once, baby?_

_Just a kiss goodnight, maybe_

_You and I will fall in love_

She remembers her.

When they met she hardly had any red left in her hair, the grace from her yesteryears was etched onto her skin like the worn-out music sheet of a lullaby; perhaps it was not as tangible anymore but you could still hear the melody clinging onto her if you looked at it closely. Her eyes were shiny, and green, often glazed over, Mallory used to ask her if she was okay sometimes because she had caught her plenty of times lost within a memory; the way her movement relented when she was deep in thinking, how her voice when adrift while telling a story like she had to run chasing after a detail that tried to escape from her grasp, at least that what was young Mallory used to think. It was bold of the youth to try and understand what went through the mind of an aging woman. 

For there were so, so many things they could be. Ones she could but imagine. 

Still, she was patient with her. Every question she had, Delilah answered, all with extreme poise and care—something Evelyn, her mother, hated—saying that old woman was stuck up and pretentious, mockingly saying over lunch to one of her church friends if the woman thought she was Carmen, prancing into any room in her finest clothes, wrapped in her best pearls, calling you “dear” while planting to kisses on your cheeks.

_“Don’t be a stranger, dear! Come later for supper!”_ Mallory whispered, imitating grandma’s voice with an absent-minded smile while shaking the dust off her frame. 

_People say that love's a game_

_A game you just can't win_

_If there's a way_

_I'll find it someday_

_And then this fool will rush in_

Frozen in motion and long since she left her, she was still so beautiful.

Not in vain was she thinking of her grandmother after all this time, that day of hers had been utter shit. The pain in her ankle was caving to the drugs she had taken and left behind an uncomfortable numbness, a dragging-like sensation that reminded her only, somehow, to seeing water wash out the sand from her hair after a day at the beach. There were always little grains caught up by the rim of the drain. All she wanted, all she needed, was to cling onto something nice, something that didn’t make her feel utterly and irreparably miserable. 

Dust filled the air as she moved her books around, being particularly careful with the small ceramic figurine of a fairy Delilah had given her when she turned thirteen, back then when she still somewhat felt stagnant before her; _« Now, how am I supposed to feel? She’s so smart and so beautiful, I feel so dumb and awkward whenever I try to talk around her »_ she had found herself depicted in a way in those fawn-like gentle features if only someone had tugged at her nose and pulled. She called the fairy Samantha, she had firefly-like wings that shone in lilac and baby yellow, vine wrapped around her ankles and up her legs, both of her hands were placed in front of her with her forearms folded, almost like she was trying to protect herself.

On good days she found her hopeful, her large hooded eyes were warm in her pure black irises, her posture looked like a dance. On bad days she looked trapped, finding her own woeful gaze reflected on the minuscule white spot in a corner of her pupils, shielding herself from the ruthless wind that pushed her back onto the ground every time she tried to rise and fly.

Daisy lied on her rug, paws tucked underneath her head, curling up while she watched her mother cleaning, Mallory’s face was lost in thought, never so full yet never so blank; it was hard to tell whether it was Delilah’s story which she replayed or her own. 

Austen, Flynn, Stevenson, Christie, Brown, Dostoyevsky, Rice and King. Also other names. She placed every book back in place with care, saddened at the thought some of her favorites had been untouched for months, some of them hadn’t even been opened since she moved to Spokane, she scrunched her nose curiously and brought herself to pull her copy of _The Gambler_ from her shelf, examining the pages.

Two months ago she had gone downtown in a fit of boredom and come across a small watch shop, being mainly enticed by the stained glasses on their showcase that concealed the contents from the inside. She left empty-handed after moseying around for ten or fifteen minutes, not before impulsively grabbing a business card from the register. There it was now, in her hands, and in paper and ink she saw colored crystals bloom, they danced around her in shapes of screws and gears, above her they floated and quietly they hummed a song, ticking and tocking like nails drumming on wood. 

Yeah, she came up with a so-called great idea but, how appropriate of her would it be to get Duncan that birthday present? Was that allowed, how was she supposed to give it to him? Mallory shut the book close with a thud and left the _Merryfield: Clocks & Artistry _ business card on top of her kitchen counter. 

_« Don’t you dare, you’re being fucking ridiculous, Mallory »_

Try as she may, at some she would have to have that conversation with herself. What had happened in her office that afternoon had been a complete disaster, now only had she gone barefoot making Duncan look at her swollen fucking feet—one more so than the other—and, deprived of any semblance of common sense, agreed to be his friend. The ridiculous scenario of her wrapping the gift in shiny paper and handing it to a dumbfounded Duncan Shepherd then crept into her mind (she bit her lip inevitably as she lowered herself on the ground to reach the bottom level, cold floor welcomed her gladly, trembling hands held onto the smooth shelves wood) doing that thing he did of parting his lips showing a white row of slightly crooked bottom teeth, his lashes casting shadows over his narrowed eyes.

Then he’d tilt his head, tempting her to press her eyes closed and throw her own back showing her pulse fluttering beneath her throat, alabaster skin exposed as to offer him a big, bloody bite.

_“What’s this for?”_ he’d tease without looking up from the loosening bow.

_“Blame the MCA,”_ she would excuse.

And then he would act as though he understood her. 

The whole ordeal was confusing, Mallory couldn’t quite tell why she had been so reckless. There she was, chastising Daniel Christensen over accepting a roll of bills under the desk to keep an eye on Duncan and she had agreed on acting unprofessionally around him under the promise he would let her dissect him and his behavior at her peril. What kind of logic was that? Well, perhaps the logic of a woman who came home every evening to a black lab and pasta leftovers, the private life she had once enjoyed was a mere ghost of itself, a parody of itself, nowadays it felt like she would take whatever source of entertainment she was given.

Bullshit. It was just hard for her to admit Duncan Shepherd fascinated her.

He, the man whose name was written on a permanent marker on a small piece of paper pinned to her corkboard, the man whose therapy sessions she looked forward to almost embarrassingly eager, the man whose eyes were capable with a tiny little glance to make her throat run dry.

And she understood it, she already did, when she met him. There were people who drew her in, fluorescent lights to moths, people capable of pushing her off her rockers if necessary. All her life she had been pulled in their direction as though she absorbed her as much as she absorbed her them; she could feel these people linked themselves to her like snakes biting at each other’s tails. It should have been better to leave it off alone and scold him at the simple, nauseous proposition of seeing each other as friends.

They could never be friends because she could never fully allow him to get to know her. What else was she supposed to say, anyway? Bore him to death with prison storytimes and narrating her pathetic ride home to him every Wednesday? The least she could do was try and pray they would get another mutiny so they could have something to, say, humor them for a couple of hours. See if she can twist her other ankle. 

_« How dare you joke about this when Alfred lost an eye because of it? »_

At this she threw the patterned cardboard box she was holding against the ground so hard the lid popped off and all the contents scattered on her floor, Daisy stirred on her spot and sit up, startled, as Mallory mumbled an apology aimed at no one in specific.

She couldn’t believe she was seriously apologizing to a fucking cardboard box. 

Her brow knitted in bewilderment at the sight of the scattered papers. Immediately she recognized passed on notes between her and Madison during class, concert tickets, maps, foreign candy wrappers, and flowers pressed on plastic. Her expression relaxed but immediately grew blue when she realized what she had just tossed in a bolt of mindless rage, looking down drawing a tremulous hand to cover her mouth as though the ghost of the gasp she was uttering would make any sound. It didn’t.

There were papers, notes, essays and trinkets from a prior life, ones so precious she forced herself to crawl on her hands and knees towards them, picking them up with a sharp pain piercing through her and threatening with spilling through her fingertips, they were covered in static to the touch or maybe it was just her perception. There were pictures, too, of someone she no longer was and people she no longer knew. She knew the year perfectly, she knew exactly what she had done.

A feeling of possession, grief, and recognition washed over her sorry bones like ice-cold water and every bit of her flesh felt squirmish and feeble like she would melt onto the ground (or shatter) any second. The music still played when an object, in particular, caught her attention and she pounced on it like a madwoman, trying to fumble with it without dropping it out of nervousness.

_Put your head on my shoulder_

_Whisper in my ear, baby_

_Words I want to hear_

_Tell me, tell me that you love me too_

When she unfolded a wrinkled piece of paper hidden under notes on the ground, she sobbed. Her hand was shaking over her trembling mouth, and just like she had been possessed by the heaviest, most painful of sentiments she let herself cry, cry as who feels that kind of loss for the first time. It was dated from eight years back, perhaps a little less, and she recognized the letters and numbers as her midterm results printed from the university’s library in recycled paper. 

She read on, and it felt like she was there once again.

* * *

She had done rather poorly on her midterms that week.

Mallory tried to find it a reason, she tried to find it an excuse, but didn’t succeed at any; it was just a mess. Every minute, every second from that moment was pure and sheer torture, the anxious lasso tied around her heart was beginning to slice the flesh and it dripped in red inside her chest, the color left her skin and turned her hands to ice. What was her mother going to say? What was she supposed to reply? The mere thought brought tears to her eyes—You’re so stupid! You are so, so stupid! she told herself over and over—and the sides of her face were numb and bruised where her own fists had collided in the middle of a fit of rage; to take it out on herself, for she had no choice. 

“I can’t concentrate on anything,” she sniffed “I can’t even think of anything.”

Her back was pressed to a wall, the drywall digging into her back through her shirt. Her stomach felt cement-heavy, a painful pressure dug itself deeper and deeper like a low punch; it had gotten harder to control her breathing, and every intake of breath was as shaky as it was painful. Words, they couldn’t be formed, feelings had mashed into a formless mass and she could no longer tell anything or anyone apart. 

All but him remained unclear.

His voice was caring, soothing, deep and slow enough for her to understand. When he held her, he held her with care, and it almost (almost) felt as though she’d be okay, and that’d been a promise she clung to against all odds. She was crying, and not the pretty kind of crying that makes you kind of stop and stare, she was crying like real people did. Her pain was real, uncut, impossible to mantle under any pretty thing; still, he held her, and that promise no longer felt as stupid. 

You’ll be okay.

“Mal… Mallory…” he called for her, she flinched at the soft feeling of his hand cupping her face. The act had been gentle, but even that made her recoil and brought the needles to sink in again in an agitated muscle that struggled to move. 

It felt as though it’d burst any second. 

Fuck whoever said relationships were some magical remedy to doubt and illness, if anything, being with him had made her touchier than ever; in every aspect, she was overly sensitive and overexposed. All these questions were blooming in her mind, and the answers scared her more than the very questions.

“I had a fight with her last week, what am I going to tell her now when she asks how did the midterms go?” Mallory’s voice cracked, her eyes red and wide as saucers. His own gaze softened at the same time he stroked her cheek with a knowing tilt of his head. “I-I can’t tell—”

“Then don’t tell her.” he rushed to say, coolly. “You don’t have to tell her, lie to her if you must.”

She made a sound alike a wounded doe, hiding her face in her hands as another sob disrupted the air, apparently, he minded it little because all he did was caressing her back still crouching by her side, pressed to a wall. Mallory was embarrassed, it was half-past two and now his pants were all wrinkly, the time she had left was running out and she would have to go out and pretend.

Go out and pretend, go out and pretend. Again she sobbed, the thought made it worse.

“Oh, you make it sound so easy!” she whined “You don’t know her! You don’t know how she’ll react! If I lie to her she will try to find a way around it, and once she does it’ll only be worse.”

He clicked his tongue, bringing her an inch nearer “Mal, why of course I know it. Love, this is the third time you get like this, this week.” he reminded her, and despite having borne no ill intention, she couldn't help but feel irremediably guilty. 

“I’m sorry.” she stammered. 

“Don’t be,” her head was placed gently against his shoulder, cradling her. And when she cried, he hushed her, when she cried he rocked her, “Don’t be.” 

Mallory was somewhat floating, she didn’t want to stop floating if that meant she would have to touch the ground and feel the pain waking with every step of her feet, she didn’t want to face the terror that it supposed to be human and face her mistakes. 

His smell, wow, his smell. It was enough to calm her. Was it cold wind filtering through the branches of a pine she sensed? Was it musk? To this day she was unsure, but in his scent, she’d tread and get lost into, she would gladly leave it all behind and forget what she left behind and even what followed. Years would teach her no other thing would give her such a feeling of peace, and every tasteless diversion she tried to replace it with was lousy and flavorless, in comparison. 

Perhaps it was some overpriced cologne on softener what she smelled, and maybe it would mean nothing to anyone else who smelled it, but when you love somebody as she loved him absolutely everything about them is outrageous and otherworldly. She had told him once, and he had smiled at her, tucking a lock back in place; how strange was it to think to see her making that very gesture, lost in thought, would bring someone else in? Ever so unaware. 

“I’m a failure, aren’t I?” she mused with a heavy heart.

She felt him furrow above her, giving her arms a squeeze.

“Of course not!” he cried, looking down at her and making her look up in return “Mallory, of course not! You did poorly on a couple of exams, not in the entirety of your life. You’re being too hard on yourself, dear, you will do better next time.” 

And ever so stubborn, she chose to differ.

“It’s just… The first thing she did when I told her my major was telling me I wouldn’t be able to do it and now I have to tell her I nearly failed…” she shrugged, holding harder onto herself. 

And so she sought for solace in his gaze, she found it; but, of course, she sought it in the eyes of someone who loved her and held her in the highest of altars. What if someday he woke up and felt tired of dealing with her this way? Of listening to all her complaints and all her mindless worries? What if someday he woke up and realized Mallory wasn’t what he thought or wanted?. 

Sometimes, thankfully, it was hard to think so. Mallory had deemed it as stupid when people claimed they could feel the inexorable love of their significant others, but his she felt oozing out of his skin and hitting her own like electric waves that came out of his fingertips; it was the realest thing she knew, and one she’d fight for, no questions asked. Sure, their circumstances were not exactly ideal, and having to meet this way was not ideal, either. The truth was she pictured them grey and old together, still tending to their ailing with the same love and care they did now, she pictured herself leaning over their bed and kissing his temple before walking out the room, and when she looked back at his sleeping form she minded little if he’d lost the color and shine of his hair, or if his skin was spotted by time. She’d love him the same. 

No doubt she’d love him the same. 

“Now, what’s the worst thing that could happen?” he asked her “If she shouts you can hang up if she complains you can ignore her, and if she won’t take you back I know a place you can hide.”

Finally, he got her to crack half a smile, to breathe. 

“Where am I supposed to hide? I can’t be at my dorm forever.”

He shrugged, looking around the room as to look for an excuse “No. But you can stay in my cabin, it’s big enough for both of us and no one will force you do any cleaning, nor criticize said cleaning if you do it.” he chuckled when she did the same and wiped off a tear that was tainting his beloved’s face, offended by its existence, bidding it away forevermore, or so he thought. 

As he waited for her answer, she stayed silent.

She hated how hard it was for her to fathom such thing, to think of herself as not worthy to spend any time with him, not worthy to allow herself to enjoy something as mundane and common as spending her forthcoming break with her boyfriend. Maybe it was the fact it was something rather recent, maybe it was the fact intimacy wasn’t something she was really good at, not to mention she had never stayed at anyone’s house that wasn’t her mother’s, or grandmother’s. Whenever she paid someone a visit it was impossible for her to sit but straight, it was impossible for her to grab a cup or switch the volume without permission; she was terrified by the thought of sneaking into the shower late at night not to disturb him and lurking by the halls with her arms crossed over her chest as she hated being there. 

If she felt like staying up and crying in the middle of the night she didn’t want him to see it.

“Hey…” he whispered, rubbing her arms reassuringly when she bolted up slightly at the sound of someone knocking on the door down the hall, someone wanting to be let into somebody else’s office “I promise you it will all be alright. We’ll get to spend the break together, we won’t have to hide from anyone or do anything we don’t want to. No texts, no chores, no calls, just us.” 

“Doesn’t it sound good?” he insisted, a soft smile stretching his lips.

And Mallory thought of how much younger he looked when he did so, hopefulness did something to him, it seemed to turn him into a boy again. Despite the age difference not being that great, it was uncontainable the impulse of imagining him nine years younger so his age matched hers, perhaps he had been too green, then, to cope with her, but he assured her he would have loved her as much as he now did, regardless. 

It hurt, really, the amount of reassurance she needed.

“Yes, it does sound good,” she whispered.

“And…” he trailed off suggestively, bringing her closer “...I could grant you something better than quickies on my desk and the back of my car.” Mallory laughed, sniffing the rest of her tears away and wiping her face, he nuzzled the skin he had at his reach making her dizzy.

He began to pepper kisses on her collarbone, treading slowly upwards towards her neck.

“Just… Imagine… The things I could do to you.” he breathed.

Flushed red and new to all of this attention, Mallory laughed nervously as a response and teasingly tried to squirm away, hitting him softly in the chest, hoping distance would help her regain some of her composure. With wobbly legs she stood up, his right hand secured on her elbow and his other arm wrapped around her waist, he looked at her lovingly as ever. 

“I mean it.” he swore, “I’m taking you away with me, won’t let anybody hurt you.”

“You sound almost convincing.” she teased.

He laughed an oddity in him for everyone but her. Behind his stoicism she found warmth and in that warmth, she stayed. Whenever she was with him she almost felt unafraid of being herself, she almost felt as though her hopes were palpable and valid; how to convince someone who had been bashed and shamed her whole twenty-one years of the life of something like that? It took an army and a half to do so. It took an army and a half to take the pieces apart and see which worked and which were broken, took an army and a half to admit it. 

She wrapped her arms around him almost by sheer impulse, catching him by surprise, his widened gaze turning tender after a second. He enveloped her, with no false pretenses, and pressed a kiss to her head.

Eight years later she would look back at that memory with a sour taste burning down her throat and an uncomfortable tingle rushing through her hands, finding more pain in it than the joy it once brought her. Like rain on a windowpane, the memory blurred and smeared over, leaving but washed out shapes and colors that no longer felt her own; just harsh, and confusing, it hurt her eyes to try and tell the smudges and lines apart. 

Lastly, she held onto the last couple frames of memory and tried to cast some light from it. 

“You’re a mess, Mallory” he laughed, fingers digging into the sensitive skin of her ribs.

“Stop!” she laughed, shouting in a whisper. Judging by the time and the day, it was just a matter of time before some student came knocking on his door looking for help, “Stop it, someone is gonna walk in on us! You’re not getting any right now.”

He raised his brows, “Oh, am I not?” 

She dodged a kiss, stirring and squirming away from it at the sound of footsteps approaching his office door, being much too tempted to cave in to the sight of him and put to practice what in silence they had been preaching. To allow herself to become an example of sheer, utter defilement. His wandering hands would not succeed when she rushed to collect her things and walk back towards his second door, dissatisfaction became him as she got away, yet again.

So he took on playing his well-known part, instead.

“I’m glad you found my assistance useful, and hope you join us next lecture.” he spoke in false seriousness, hands clasped primly behind his back, “Have a nice day, Miss Howell.”

She smirked as she slipped through the door, one last hint of complicity in her eyes.

“Have a nice day, Professor Langdon.” 

* * *

Grandma Delilah was still holding her when she came out of it and wiped her wet cheeks with the back of her hand, trying to brush her embarrassment away by spraying every surface in her reach with pine Febreze. Perhaps she couldn’t see her, but she could feel her, looking kindly at her face and hoping she could do something to soothe her rather than simply saying she did understand, but it wasn’t so easy.

When she was nineteen years old, a couple months before her passing, Mallory asked her if she had any regrets. Grandma Delilah said she had once been a great dancer at a renowned dance studio in Brooklyn, New York, that she had been surrounded by the most extraordinary people she ever met; when she did she could see her nervously brushing the edge of her sweetheart cut top, fatally flattering for her even despite her seventy-six years of age. She told her of fickle, reckless youth of the nineteen-fifties and how she had been a diamond on the rough those days minding little if she was talented or not. To her art came in the shape of something cathartic and precious little would even understand; she called herself a gypsy, a bohemian, she adorned herself in feathers and tulle on a stage while she caressed her own pale and powdery face fantasizing of those pigments were laced with led, daring herself to finish her performance before she succumbed to the poisonous fumes.

_Put your head on my shoulder..._

_Whisper in my ear, baby..._

_Words I want to hear, baby..._

_Put your head on my shoulder..._

  
  


Chaos came and went around her as did cravings and trends, defined by the wavering desires of the people her time; of their resentment, their fear, Delilah lived in a world of her own making. And Mallory understood, then, when she was in the arms of someone she loved so dearly—the worst person she could have not even chosen to love—that it minded little when you had passion over something you were doing. How expectations and social norms were put to walk on a tightrope as long as she felt, in any way, happiness.

It angered her to know it was over.

It angered her to know how after all this time running away and playing pretend this satrap, this bastard, this stranger would come in and startled her persuading her to let him drink some of her coffee; to think he glanced up at her tied a chain around her wrist the second she looked into those clear, blue eyes. The skin? The hair color? The tattoos and beard? Entirely different. Even his voice was different, more airy, less demure, less sophisticated in nature. There were a million different things between Duncan and Michael, but just this one was necessary for her to fall victim to a ghost of her past, for her to completely shatter.

Mallory scanned the room and looked so any sort of comfort, any sort of clue, convincing herself not all was entirely lost. She found nothing. From now own she would struggle not to look at him and make that association, not to look for someone else’s grin stretching his lips when he smiled.

She shut her wet eyes angrily and harshly threw the cleaning rag to her side, she could go and do all the cleaning she wanted until every surface became mirrors and her hands bled, either way at the end of the night she would still feel lost and defiled, stirring like she was lying in a bed of dirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, bitch. I bet you thought you'd seen the last of him...


	10. Ticky Tacky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short little treat for today. Happy birthday, Duncan. This one's for you.

The ruthless gashes of guilt left her body bloody and bruised deep beneath her skin, deep beneath her nails, and the translucent baby hairs on her arms, beneath her pride and even beneath her very soul. Sunken deep were wicked wounds no time could fix—Mallory sighed, exhausted, stirring in the cold murky waters of her tub that had long since lost their bubbles—sin had found its way into her spirit, it had touched it and scratched it raw until minced flesh was all it left behind.

She looked into the ceiling, the same moth she had seen there much earlier that morning was still there hanging upside down with the small hairs covering its paws and sticking it to the dusty surface. The room was so quiet all she could hear were the droplets of water meeting its kind in the tub and her jagged breathing. As much as she tried it was impossible to fight that terrible feeling that took over her, that guilt.

Ten or fifteen minutes had passed and she still had her breasts peeking out from under the water like two minuscule mountains with her nipples hardened and painful to the touch, she had found, when her hand brushed one of them without intending to. Mallory closed her eyes and pressed her temple to the cold rim of the tub trying to swim into nothingness, yet nothingness wouldn’t comply; even inside the water, she could tell apart the slick, sticky feeling of cum gathering at her entrance and drip from her folds. _« That should do it, that should fix it for now »_ she thought, helplessly repeating those words to herself like a mantra. Her cunt throbbed once again around nothing, almost like the distant cries of her dying orgasm ebbing far and away from her body, however, dissatisfied she still felt. This emptiness. It didn’t matter what she did, her road to delectation was successful but fleeting. 

Besides, her shower head sucked ass.

It was the morning of November 17th, and Mallory Howell didn’t bother to bring a towel along when she got into her tub about an hour before. The cold air hitting her skin turned soft flesh into a parade of bumps and caused her to mutter a string of curse words together if her nipples hurt before they were unbearable now. 

What a lovely sight it was, five foot one with the soaked wet hair and the potty mouth, running across the hall butt-naked, with her little feet leaving wet spots on her mock hardwood floors; her asscheeks bouncing with every little skip she took. She was late for work, her clothes laid on her bed, her shoes tossed by her boudoir.

She chose pink, because it was soft and feminine, and because she liked the bow that tied around her waist and pressed into her ribs like a loving embrace. The shoes were beige because she thought it stupid to wear a single color like a middle school debutant eager to scribble on her brand new notebook and divide it into subjects using her glittery butterfly stickers. Although she had a pretty big mouth for someone who chose pink brassiere and panties to match, without any apparent reason. 

Oh, and it was Duncan Shepherd’s thirtieth birthday.

* * *

“You look surprised”

“I _am_ surprised” 

The visitation areas in Airway Heights varied depending on the day and occasion, this one had to be the prettiest one. Despite how fruitless it was, it almost gave the impression it was some sort of patio if patios were awfully lifeless and dull. There were a few plants scattered here and there—fake, she assumed, nothing that green could be alive indoors in this kind of weather—and even pictures from various mountainsides across America, she had scoffed when she first saw them; sitting on her seat with her hands folded over her lap, last thing these men wanted was to think of the greatness and wilderness of the outside while locked up inside, telling their mothers they’d be out soon, telling their wives it was them all they could think about while in captivity.

Nevertheless, the prettiest.

Duncan smiled, shaking his head, and at that moment Mallory couldn’t help but realize beauty was indeed subjective and relative. For the prettiest place for these men could easily be the ugliest to others; Duncan looked at her like she was pretty, giving to her his undivided attention, she was stirred painfully by the idea of knowing what loneliness did to a man deprived. Would he still think her beautiful if it was the DC chrome and glimmer the space he lived into, not these grey four walls with their smell of fresh paint and bleach? Perhaps it was easier not to thinking of it, perhaps it was easier not to ask. 

“It’s your birthday, Duncan,” she laughed, “I would believe you were expecting the company or being acknowledged somehow! I’m sorry I didn’t bring a cake or anything.”

He raised a hand, with no cuffs straining his wrists this time. She smiled.

“It’s okay. You’re giving me more than my mother, anyway.”

Mallory rolled her eyes, hiding her obvious embarrassment “We were given fifteen minutes before my meeting starts, that’s all.”

“Still more.”

The box was heavy on her lap, the texture of the bow loud and scratchy underneath her forefinger and thumb, it felt like it weighed a ton in her grasp, as did her stomach. But it didn’t matter, anyway, not when she saw the excitement taking over his face, drawing tiny little lines around his eyes. 

“I got you a present,” she sing-sang, shrinking onto her own frame and averting his gaze.

Hadn’t see done so she would have noticed the sudden gleam that took over his.

“Did you?” he whispered, stirring on his chair from the opposite end of the small rounded table “Like, did you, really?”

She nodded excitedly and brought the small wooden box up to place it over the table sliding it from her end all the way to his, their hands met in the middle; his eyes were narrowed at her, as though he was trying to decipher what she had gotten him just by looking at her. She watched his forearms fold, graciously, as his fingers undid the bow and opened the small lid of the wooden box his present came in, Mallory then blushed and fought the urge of hiding her face in her hands, looking nervously at the packaging hay that was placed there for some fucking reason, both of them locked eyes momentarily and chuckled.

“What is—?” 

She laughed louder in reply “I don’t know! It was part of the packaging, I guess!”

Then he held it in his hands. Untarnished, unaffected, and untouched.

“It’s a watch…” he whispered, examining the perfect silver circle in his hands “A pocket watch…”  
  
“I found this local shop downtown a while back and I was pulled towards it, they have all kinds of watches and grandfather clocks, and stained glasses. The whole place looks like it’s some sort of rendition to the steampunk subgenre, or something, I was going to throw the business card I got away but then I remembered your birthday.”

“It’s lovely, Mallory, thanks…”

It was the most boring gift someone could give to someone else, but Duncan held in carefully in his hands as she had shrunk the moon and place it still ablaze in a milky white brume in his hands. She mouthed a little “Can I?” and reached forward where he was holding it, frowning slightly at the sight of her fumbling with his new watch, “It hasn’t been started, the watch, I was thinking maybe you could, you know…”

Her voice became a thread, “Start it once you’re out?”

He nodded in understanding, the look on his face somewhat heavy-hearted. 

Mallory then opened it and showed him what was inside.

The cogs and gears waiting to be set into motion weren’t simply made out of steel, it was some kind of glass they were made of, in a plethora of cracked colors like a kaleidoscope. Stray fragments of something else.

She cleared her throat, “Shortly…” Mallory took a pause to wet her lips with her tongue and shift, “Shortly after we met you told me something. That Bill, your uncle, once told you that you were about as useful as a pile of broken glass…”

“You…” Duncan sank back into his chair, distancing himself from her a bit as he did so, his voice was full of disbelief, “You _remembered_ that?”

“I did.”

“I did, and…” she continued, “I wanted you to know I don’t think you are, I really don’t. And if I was unable to persuade you into thinking otherwise, at least I could show you those gears and make you understand they, too, can set time back into motion. That, well, there can be purpose and beauty even in broken pieces of glass.”

He stayed silent, his expression thoughtful and almost blank.

Duncan rose from his seat abruptly, almost making her bolt on her own. Panic shot through her, thinking maybe she had crossed the line, or so done something uncalled for; it was only a reflex she jumped right out from her chair and waited for him to storm right past her, to cuss her out, her breathing was constrained by the ruthless grasp of fear.

Then he reached out to her and held her tightly in his arms.

A gasp got caught in her throat and died before it had the chance to be born.

To be enveloped by Duncan’s arms was as perplexing as it was unexpected. His touch was not as gentle to the ones she had gotten used to, to pale fingertips tracing shapes up her arms and tucking stray strands of hair behind her ear. His was almost insisting, but also impossibly soothing and warm. Duncan was much larger than Mallory, much stronger as well, and in the middle of her surprise, she couldn’t help but feel incredibly helpless. She thought of breaking apart, terrified at the prospect of being found in this position despite being alone in that visitation area, and leaving that place before she risked herself the more.

But then she thought of the day it was, of the significance of it. She thought of how not even his own mother had taken the time to visit him that day, and how this had to be the first time maybe in a whole year that he held somebody.

So she caved into his touch and immediately felt herself relax.

“Thank you” he whispered into her hair.

Her face was burning, maybe with shame or with an unrecognizable excitement that she didn’t bring herself to fully accept for she failed to comprehend it. Memories came flashing back and took her to her little scene that morning, what she had done and who she had thought about when she did it. However lackluster it had felt, it was impossible to deny how much more real it was now she was looking at him, touching him, breathing in his scent. 

Tobacco, a note mingled somewhere deep within like a curtain of smoke, a scent that most likely clung to him from the day or the night before never quite dissipating no matter how many washes his clothes went through. The more superficial smells were much sweeter, like mint and tangerine, lavender, aprotano, and sandalwood.

Intoxicating, really.

Duncan then broke them apart, hesitantly so, urging her to look back into his eyes as he did so. She put up a silent fight until she lost. Happiness and sorrow altogether were growing unbridled somewhere within those morning skies he called eyes.

“Thank you,” he repeated.

She replied even more quietly “You’re welcome.”

* * *

_“O-Oh, fuck. Oh fuck. Oh shit!”_

An airy gasp pierced through the air before she could continue singing profanities like they were praises. Mallory arched her back, thrusting her hips up into the air with maddened need, the sickening thirst for feeling more and feeling deeper, three of her fingers fucking into her dripping cunt with no order or ceremony. Her bedspread under her was if anything ruined, and her clothes were crumbled in a pile in front of her bed, her panties being left last hanging from a side of her bed, dangling at the tandem of her furiously movements, the pale pink lace with the sown flowers were the perfect depiction of a virgin being used and profaned. 

Except it wasn’t her own fingers she was feeling, at least not in her mind.

Strong hands would have parted her thighs delighting themselves in the softness of them, dragging their fingertips up towards her center, it would have been not her palms of the tough sides of his face leaving scratches on the plain of her stomach, a devilish grin would have drawn itself on his lips, praising her for being such a good little girl for him, so wet for him from a few light touches. 

“Are you gonna be good for me?” he would ask.

  
“Yes,” she lulled, tugging at her sheets as she folded her legs further up.

“Are you gonna be a good girl for me, Mallory?” he would tease, pushing her more.

The thrusts hitting that godforsaken spot in her upper inner walls made her cry out to God, they were his and hers alike. Although she would have liked it better had it been him forcing himself in and out of her cunt in sharp deep strokes. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling her hearing disappear for a moment to be replaced by static. Mallory pulled her fingers out and slapped her reddened, swollen mound with about as much strength as he would have himself. 

“Yes!” she cried.

Every inch of her skin was covered in fire, covered in sweat, her movements were rushed and desperate, chasing the hellish relief only this could give her. Now, she thought, it was real. Far too real. Real enough to feel his smell linger in her hair when she pressed her cheek to the mattress and rose her hips until her sharp hip bones threatened with piercing through her delicate skin.

“Oh, Duncan! Fuck!”

Then she saw it, the satyr. Smiling wickedly at her, his tongue twirling around one of his fangs, peering down at her as he pounded roughly into her. The imagine she could tell by her, burning under her shut eyelids, present in every yelp and trembling whispered she uttered, switching between pumping harshly into her pussy and rubbing tight circles on her clit, seconds away from falling over the cliff. It was hers and that satyr’s secret and sentence. 

Her vision went black and the knot inside her stomach snapped in half. She trembled and cried until the aftershocks of her climax disappeared, boneless and worn out on the covers she’d ripped out the corners; she fell asleep that way, her bedside lamp still on, her door unlocked, and all her guards down. Even in her sleep, she looked peaceful but troubled. 

It was the late-night of November 17th, and Mallory Howell was hopeless. 


	11. Precautionary Measures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been ages, my darlings, I'm aware. I got a couple good excuses but I know you don't want to hear them. Long story short it's been a lot. I just wanted to let you guys know my AO3 works are currently set on private since my friends and I came to find there are several unofficial apps where you can read the fanfiction posted on this platform without giving kudos, or any sort of acknowledgement to the writers whatsoever. And what's even worse. These app makers are profiting off our work with ads, which is beyond wrong. So I've set my works as readable only for registered users so it can't be found on these phony little fucks. 
> 
> If you have come across these "apps" please refrain from installing them and much less signing up with your AO3 information because they are in no way associated with AO3's team and it's pretty dangerous to give your information out like that. I know, it's hilarious I'm sharing this on a fic where the male lead is in prison for stealing private information from a cellphone app. Anywho.
> 
> I'm currently on Twitter! Come shout at me @ hxdespersxphone! As you can see I'm talking about Reylo a lot, that's pretty much where I've been all this time, my bad. I'm actually considering jumping the Reylo writing bandwagon, what do you all think? Should I? 
> 
> Hugs and kisses, love you.

_ Princess, baby, honey, queen, sweetie, fuckface, drunkard, cunt, airhead.  _ The names just kept piling up together, he’s heard them all in snarled lips and hushed kisses—those he pretended not seeing, but how they burned inside his mind, how they left his mouth bitter and dry like he’d been sucking on a battery. Confusing at times, Duncan couldn’t tell if they were meant to be insults or terms of endearment of some kind, he usually decided over seeing his mother’s reactions to them, the swift rip of her manicured hands snatching a glass of cognac from Frank’s hands with eyes glassy with rage, attempting through slurring to bite right back, or the stingy red shade spread over her outstretched cheeks as she smiled; as she smiled and hushed him with her own lips engaging in the sort of crass, affectionate kind of attack he’d only come to understand years later when time had awoken his hunger for flesh. She gasped, he sighed.

Time to go back to his room and keep quiet.

The concept of friendship engraved somewhere in his left side brains had always been one puzzling and unclear. For once he had accepted it was okay and it was normal to see mom’s “friend” stopping by whenever his father left for West Virginia—or  _ Wes Veeginie _ , as child aged Duncan would call it—and not see him leave from his bedside window until early in the morning, but he failed to understand why if he was mom’s friend he would often take it to make her cry. Mom had never told him so, matter of fact she had always gotten angry and nervous whenever Duncan pointed it out, father must not ever mom had friends over during his absence, she told him. Maybe he didn’t want strange people in the house leaving footprints on the carpet.

Her friend had once done it, he remembers placing his much smaller foot next to the stain trying to compare sizes. He remembers how his shoes were dusty blue, with white laces.

Infancy, and at times even idiocy, had left a mark on him never to be removed, impossible to scrub off, in the shape and size of Frank Underwood. The man he had seen sneak into his house at all times available since he was three, the man who once scared him with a live snake during a cookout in the summer before the eyes of a disapproving Uncle Bill, the man who had stumbled across him one New Year’s Eve near the foyer when after taking a beating from that same uncle at a sitting room had helped Duncan to fix his tie and smooth down his jacket before loudly sniffing his nose as to instruct him to do the same. 

His father.

Took time for him to understand it, even longer for him to accept it. There was something wrong and hopeless about knowing yourself illegitimate, about knowing yourself unworthy. It would have been easier to be aware of one of Anette’s affairs aplenty, of having to roll his eyes at her dignified strut back into the house on a late Thursday night knowing perfectly fine she was not in a business meeting.  _ But to be the product of it? _ Was… Was Annette even married when Duncan was conceived? He didn’t know, it shamed him to think so, he didn’t even know the date of his parents’ anniversary. His official’s one, anyway. 

Annette had been painfully nonchalant when he finally confronted her a couple nights after that fateful New Year’s Eve, he was not trying to get a confession out of her or putting his own parentage into question, all he wished to know was why that man always appeared out of nowhere and why he took the bother to actually help him in a moment otherwise helpless. The coil in his stomach, a flimsy knot doing and undoing itself in the same wavelength of his lowering blood pressure, only started threading out when she spoke with utmost melancholy addressing to his story with Frank as though it was the most epic of novellas, a tale too pure for prying eyes, something to be treasured and to keep hidden.

Blah blah, met when they were young, blah blah, none of them fit or worthy of each other, blah blah, her dearest friend came into the picture and stole him away when he deemed her for a whore due to her somewhat romantic inconsistency and ever changing suitors. The thing was at some point early into his own marriage Frank Underwood had confessed himself lost for Annette (a term all too flattering and quite frankly probably a literary touch added by Annette herself in her perpetual state of delusion, predictable for someone with a narcissistic complex) and started an ardid affair with her with living and feeling consequences. In comes Duncan.

At first, rage was churning up in his stomach, tearing his insides apart, setting his every fiber on fire. It was hard to discuss it with Annette, then, who in the middle of his torment only glanced him over with equal parts of motherly love and pity as though this was supposed to be an initiation of some kind, something she saw coming from miles away; he was tempted to ask her if it had been everything she imagined, if he had followed the script alright. A violent brush of the back of his knuckles under his wet eyes tugged at his skin a little too hard and he chose to focus on that pain, instead. When it hurt it was hard to find something to hold onto.

And Annette had been almost delighted to know both of them had something in common, a shared secret. If the rumors about her and Uncle Bill were in the slightest true it did not surprise him she would think of it as a acceptable form of mother and son bonding. 

Maybe she just wanted to feel like she wasn’t the only one that was dirtied by it.

Decades of decadence and foul play had come to this, to this greed, this rage. This conspiracy dressed as revolution burning in old celluloid, Frank Underwood—the one and only—standing tall and strong in front of a million one blinking flashes that burned through the eyes of the unsuspecting; it was one of his very first press conferences after stepping into office, sometime around early November 2014 to celebrate the inauguration of a brand new wing at the University of Pennsylvania named after him and his First Lady.

Duncan recalls it quickly, every sound, every scent, every face of those present including the now Madame President’s, the admonishing gleam in his mother’s eyes upon catching him eyeing a much fresher faced Melody Cruz from across the room in suggestive fashion.

“Would you be so kind to _ at least  _ pretend you’re listening, Duncan?” she sneered through a tight-lipped makeup smile, one he knew so well he could feel her anger sizzling underneath the rose pompadour of her lipstick. 

He acted unoffended, speaking to his mother while he kept staring poor Melody down, who continued to smile through a curtain of dark brown hair she used to partly shield her face. Whether she did it in order to conceal her girlish excitement or distract herself from Annette’s punishing gaze, he didn’t know.

“Oh, but now wouldn’t that be suspicious, mother?” he taunted, “Wouldn’t like to have the press get the wrong idea if they catch us eyeing him just a little too hard.”

Annette switched her attention from the young (and somewhat unprofessional) journalist back to Francis at the sound of his imposing voice, matter of fact even Duncan was shaken out of his little distraction, there was something about the way he enunciated the words  _ “To control our urges, and immeasurably flawed nature...” _ that made Duncan feel to say the least a bit alluded. 

Odd. Last time he checked they were only supposed to control the  _ narrative. _

She scoffed “Don’t be ridiculous—we’re supposed to be looking at him, this is his press conference, after all. They have nothing suspicious to point out on us, this man is supposed to pass on the bill your uncle is supporting, it doesn’t hurt to keep tabs on him.”

“While uninvited and not so subtly arguing, yes. Not suspicious at all.” he cheered sarcastically.

“Shut your mouth,” she hissed through gritted teeth.

Duncan had leaned towards his mother, raising on the tip of his dress shoes just slightly while not drifting his eyes from the man speaking at the podium. Francis’ eyes shone almost unfeeling, with a tone and overall demeanor that cried conviction, Duncan let out a grim chuckle catching only a mild sign of disturbance from his peripheral view; Annette was pissed, if there was something Annette hated was to not be able to express her emotions, to put on a mask with rusty pins facing the inside. It hurt her, everytime she put it on.

Was the press looking? Why of course they were looking. Anyone who had spent more than a hot second in Washington DC knew rather than examining the man in question, searching over the room could tell you more about the actual state of events than any peroration, those came a dime a dozen, for in all honesty presidents were quite the making not of their individual spirits but the agenda of their administration. Spokespersons, of a kind. If only their vehemence equalled their longevity, he would be looking at the face of immortality.

Well, thank fucking God he wasn’t.

No, the big man wasn’t the most interesting part of the room. He looked closer. At the expecting yet mildly displeased look in Claire Underwood’s face, whose blue eyes kept lingering from the surface of their makeshift stage to the spot behind her husband’s right shoulder, at the diminutive man two steps behind mouthing religiously every word he said like he had been the one to write said speech, back to the reporters holding lights and cameras almost to his face, the microphones raised in the air like they were pagans offering their worshipping to a god of the sun. There were bored faces, tired and detached, there was faces such as Melody’s distracted with a concealed emotion—the urge of getting out of there, sliding her hand just beneath the crisp fabric of his tailored suit—and such his mother’s, Annette’s, that flicked from fascinated to displeased back to interested and hesitant. He could perfectly pin-point whenever Claire came into her direct line of vision.

Smile. Smile. Frown. There is was—crunching her lovely face with pure jealousy.

Perhaps long was not the best word to describe twenty-four-year-old Duncan’s life, but it had definitely been eventful thus far. To grow up, in this snare, surrounded by scheming people and hungry mouths had been just about enough to learn a thing or two about human nature; matter of fact, the kind of pseudo-anthropology he was into had gotten him far. To be raised by chronic power masturbators and compulsive liars had made Duncan grow into the skin of a particularly discerning individual. It almost made him feel guilty how Annette had been his prime subject of study over the years, that her relationship (to call it something) with his biological father was somewhat a depiction of this crooked American dream.

He was her last ember of a dying dusk, she was his midnight snack.

As a man, himself, he didn’t fail to understand Francis’ nonchalance and Annette’s devotion, she always wanted whatever Claire was having. He could see them, senior year aged with their shiny hairs in different shades of blonde huddled up in the corner of some local café listening to Pat Benatar and gushing over their latest conquests while planning on taking over the world; such was their ambition, such was their hopefulness.

Claire should have known better than to show her bare back to the queen of vipers.

Was it love, what his mother had now been feeling for thirty years? Unlikely. He was doubtful of Annette feeling love for more than her wild idealizations and her designer bags, for the rest it was none but possession, how she loved to possess, there was no doubt why she would try and sink her claws into Francis thinking that would get her to rip a chunk big enough for her to eat and be sated. But it never was. Conformity was not one to come by, not when we were talking about Annette Jane Shepherd. 

Duncan was maybe the highest of prizes, a winning lottery ticket she couldn’t bring herself to claim. Imagine birthing the son of Francis Underwood, the last string tying his mortal soul onto the ground for Duncan refused to believe Claire’s infant daughter and his supposed half-sister—Rosalie Josephine, Little Rosie—was really Francis’ daughter, and having to keep it a secret fearing the public shame and ultimate damnation of having raised the product of the real greatest scam of this three-act tragedy: Duncan.

Annette claimed to love him all the same, so she said when she frantically smoothed down the collar of his dress shirts and kissed on his stubbled cheeks or got Francis to bail Duncan out of prison for drug distribution with the added bonus of getting a lecture not on changing his ways or setting on in the path of righteousness, but to learn to _ lie _ better. 

At times he wondered if it was him or the concept of his existence she loved. For one she had never been a neglectful mother and rather sinned of being too permissive and forgiving, for the other he had to admit if there was something that made her squirm in self-sufficiency was that, in the most Henry VIII fashion, she had given Francis the male heir Claire failed to deliver.

Who knows, maybe the Jane in her middle name stood for Jane Seymour.

⚫ ⚫ ⚫

“I understand your circumstances, mother, and I wouldn’t dream of judging you for them. Those, as you know, are quite personal—” he gestured around dismissively whilst he followed through a narrow pathway, cement shiny with puddles “—but do I  _ also _ have to act like I’m the other woman?”

“I mean, I know all you say about illegitimacy or whatever, but wouldn’t it be easier if he simply limited himself to just… call? Maybe? No?” he continued.

Annette kept looking forward, her steps undisturbable “He said he’d meet us here, after the other car had left” she limited herself to say. The fact she said “the other car” over “Claire’s car” only showed how insecure she made her, even a mention of her name was sacrilegious. 

He sighed, tugging harder at the dark blue fabric of his coat, trying to protect his frame from the cold breeze, this was downright degrading “Through the back just like Marilyn,” he mused “Although, I’m not gonna lie, I’m curious to see if he’s gonna sneak us inside the house through those tunnels, at some point.”

The small quiver and sudden hesitation in her steps had him relenting himself, Duncan had to physically avoid scoffing out loud  _ «Oh my god, she cannot be serious right now, can she? Already? How long has it been since the elections, anyway, two weeks?» _ . He would keep his questions for later. He did wait for her to add something, though, but she just kept on walking until the pathway turned into a cobblestone hallway and a grandiose foyer still reeking of wood polish and fresh paint. 

_ Inescrutable, it is.  _ Duncan reached somewhere in the back of his mind whereas the tapping of their shoes filled the air, a certain stench of disgrace followed suit just like in the rest of their clandestine meetings. Then in a corner of his own mind he found it, a mask matching hers, and felt it slip into place however invisible. He had forgotten how rough it was to the touch.

“But enough of that, enough of that,” Francis barked through a laugh, proceeding to stuff the folder Annette had handed him discreetly into his jacket “I don’t wanna hear another word on that fucking communist punk, you and I both know he’s a fucking lost cause.”

_ “Oh, stop that!” _

Annette blushed, opening her mouth in fake surprise and playfully slapping his arm. Tasteless chuckles ensued as though they were the only two people in the room and Duncan was just another lampshade in that sinuous office. He hated it here. 

Did they not have shame? Did they not have the littlest semblance of decency? Rest assured Duncan was aware of his status of daily web developer and nightly agent of diversions, he was aware he had not once given into the temptation (or the pressure) of consuming hard drugs but that he had gladly distributed them to the masses and let his buddy take the fall once they got caught, not sparing a second to look back at who he considered a lesser man due to his upbringing and lack of wealth, he knew pretty well he was one to stand side by side with his outdated family and speak of how vile and deviated it was to sell one’s flesh while being a habitual consumer of the same, and why of course he could not overlook the fact he was birthed and raised into a family who was prone to—to put it bluntly—bury their problems. 

_ But at least he didn’t bring his bastard and mistress into a room that was still reeking of his wife’s perfume!  _ Well, this then led him to ponder whether he would be an faithful husband or not, standing by the wall with a tumbler half-full of liquor in his hand, swallowing thickly at it like it was a mouthful of staples. Who was he kidding? He probably wouldn’t, he was too much of a manwhore and too much of a dickhead to go ahead and bind himself to someone permanently. Maybe he would save himself the expenses of a nasty divorce by just not marrying at all, enter some sort of arrangement with someone or just never getting to the point where…

“Huh?” he jerked his head up, out of the sudden.

Frank grimaced at his lack of attention, taking a deep breath and quickly concealing it under the kind of smile that did not reach the eyes, sociopathic looking.

“I asked if you had gone over the papers with your uncle, kid.”

Duncan felt his throat contracting under his gelid gaze and mentally noted he must never, ever make fun of Melody Cruz again for hiding her face from his mother. Had he been able to, it was very likely Duncan would have done the same thing in that second. Regardless, he forced himself not to look away, to hold his breath while he consciously relaxed his brow and hoped for his heartbeat to steady.

“Naturally,” he shrugged, the mere nonchalant gesture made him feel proud of himself “Although we have been reevaluating the upsides and downsides of what is supposed to be a mutually beneficial relationship. Our terms still stand. You withdraw any sort of public, or not so public, support for those figures we do not deem fitting of our particular agenda, and in return you can count with the Shepherd Conglomerate’s selfless, unbiased support. Which we both know is particularly convenient even now considering the state in which you’re taken on the administration, and the trepidation which you’re being  _ welcomed _ with.”

A dead moth could fall from the ceiling and land on Francis Underwood’s left ass cheek and still make more noise than what he was making. The deafening silence of the tastefully carpeted office was such he was starting to fear he would start listening to his own pulse pounding into his ears while Annette continued to slowly tilt her head and wait for a reaction.

“Has your” Francis seemed to be struggling to find the right word to use “ _ uncle  _ any change of terms and conditions he would like me to look over?”

He shook his head “As for now, no. He urges you to express your approval of the ones already given to you before stepping any further or so making any corrections. As of late, he’s been seeing this more of a developing process—” he explained, taking a step closer to place his empty glass at a nearby table, Annette’s undying eye locked on him like an arrow held on a bow following his every movement closely “—you agree to our demands, we respond in kind, and if any disagreement or relevant development arises we’ll be prompt to discuss what to do next.”

“Ah, I see. So you’ll be holding the coin above my head in a string ready to snatch it off if I start fucking you over by some sudden change of heart or, say, any action of mine you might disapprove of.”

“Mr Presid—” he rushed.

“No, no. I understand. This is your money, you took way too fucking long to make it, you won’t be spending it in something useless. I get it. I get your mentality, I wouldn’t have agreed to do this thing if that wasn’t the case, I mean. There’s so much in line for both of us; or agendas, our finances, our—”

“—Reputations—” Annette said, mostly to herself, nodding off.

“—Reputations, right,” Francis agreed glancing back at her for half a second before turning to Duncan “All of us have something to lose. And it won’t be moving forward unless we’re  _ all _ on the same page, we can’t have someone try and fuck us over, over some petty disagreement—” Annette shook his head no vehemently behind him “—have this whole thing fall to the ground because one of the parties decided last minute they wanted a bigger slice of the cake. I admire your uncle for that, being so transparent, even if he had to send a kid to deliver the message for him.”

The entire interaction was giving him a whiplash, whether it was his passive-aggressiveness or the way in which he condescendingly implied Duncan was no fit for the task. Either way his pride was wounded, and it was getting difficult to conceal it. Annette must have sensed it because she took a deep breath and stared at Duncan as who wordlessly begs their child to behave at a restaurant, the cards were laid on the table and he knew he could only get a negative result out of letting himself be hurt by comments that were obviously made to poke some fun at him. The mental image of his mother cursing him out in the back of their car was enough for him to dread it, and remember what he came for.

“That will not be an issue” he breathed through a rehearsed smile.

He could feel the tension mildly dissipating, and his mother did not look as troubled.

“Good.”

Somehow the cut short answer hurt more than a drawn-out sentence.

And he hated himself for it. He hated to feel still hidden in the back of his mind a lonely child hungry for a foul man’s validation, his half-assed compliments, the questionable advice, he hated it all. With a rage unbridled also for it bled like a dull blade cut, the kind that stings the deeper it sinks and itches the more that it heals. He hated Annette for inheriting him the blindfolded devotion he once professed when he started being a common presence alongside his mother under the table, waiting for the next trip uptown to show up with his chest out, sitting still and looking easy like a shelter dog trying to get the attention of his potential new owner. Every time he leaned over his cage and scratched on his ears, “Great work, kid”, “Look after your mother kid”, “Listen to me, kid, and one day this life will also be yours. One day you could stand by my side, right-hand man, how does that sound?” All of them empty promises he bore no intentions of keeping.

It fucking hurt him! He was a grown-ass man, for fuck’s sake, and his mother had never asked Francis for a single penny when he was growing up! She asked for no calls, for no gifts, for no recognition! Annette had resigned to have Duncan receive the same second hand treatment she had been given from the moment she first saw the eight weeks scan, the second her father swore to all heavens she would be disowned and exiled if she failed to find her “problem” a solution. Duncan had not, for one second, felt worthy of even mentally calling himself Duncan Edward Underwood. In a way he felt nameless, actually.

And still, there he was, standing in the middle of that office as Francis disregarded him with his gaze shifting to the ground and a taste of vinegar coming up his throat. His expression as sour. 

Fucking hated it.

“Bill was wondering when, exactly, we’d all be able to start putting things into motion,” Annette blurted out of sudden with her voice hoarse from being unused, Francis raised his eyebrows in returned.

“It’s been less than a month since I stepped into office, dear,” he reminded her.

“I know,” she smiled awkwardly “But it’s important that you know just how much we’re putting in line to make this whole thing happen, it’s not exactly crazy of us to want to see some profit from all of this investment.”

“Is your brother pressuring you, too, to get something out of this conversation?”

“What? No, Francis. Of course not.”

“Because it looks awfully much like that’s exactly what he wants, Annette.”

She swallowed thick, and a steady buzzing pierced through Duncan’s eardrums.

“You can tell Bill he’ll start seeing results once I’m settled into office. I have a pile of bullshit to deal with first before I start helping y’all with whatever scheme you need me to help with,” he declared, with an entitlement proper of a man in his position of power; disregarding, “I don’t think any of my state matters is less urgent than whatever leftist you want me to step over. Nor do I think it’s a matter of life or death, yet.”

He chuckled, “Go tell your brother that.”

Francis stepped forward to pinch Annette’s thin, wobbly chin. She flinched just slightly at the rough, mocking touch, and Duncan had to keep himself from physically breaking him apart from her; only kept himself from doing so once he realized the consequences wouldn’t be worth the so-called act of bravery, worse yet, it would probably cause Annette to throw a fit and take it out on Duncan, instead. 

It was ridiculous to think he had felt comfortable, fuck, he had even  _ powerful  _ before sneaking into this office! Like Francis would even grant them with more than just enough to keep them from famish! Stupid, stupid fucking dickhead, he must have known! He felt like a pathetic little fraternity pledge letting himself be used and humiliated, even if Francis’ actions weren’t anything too out of ordinary. It was the real meaning behind those actions, he knew Bill was putting Annette in this uncomfortable position because he thought her to have some advantage on this situation. She clearly didn’t. If anything, Francis simply enjoyed watching her get her spirits high only to see her crash and burn a second afterward.

Duncan just wished he wouldn’t be left in the middle of it.

When Francis looked down at the watch and stuffed it back into his pocket, both Annette and Duncan were standing there like pieces of furniture deadbolted onto the ground, incapable of uttering a sound and they were left alone to find their way out from underneath the shadows. Francis Underwood left the premises without doing as much as waving goodbye, and once again Duncan couldn’t help but feeling miserable.

His mother looked back from over her shoulder, as to follow the echo of his distant steps and to cling to them. Her expression was once again serene, like she had forgotten the whole thing, and if only he could put a name on it, he would have to say it was once again longing. Longing because she was very much aware of the damage he had caused, but didn’t seem to care much as long as she got what she wanted.

The feeling of disgust that seeped right through him is one that, after all those years, Duncan had not been quite able to wash off.

  
⚫ ⚫ ⚫

“And then he left. We were both left there in the darkness like we were two pieces of trash and he was just waiting for a janitor to come and sweep us out, I don’t think I ever forgot about it, how worthless and stupid he made me feel. I’ve regretted not having spent any more time with him, as my biological father, but every time I remember how fucking terrible it was, that fucking feeling, I can’t help but being glad he’s gone.”

“I don’t,” she trailed off in confusion “I was just asking you how your birthday was, Duncan.”

Behind the glass was Annette Shepherd in the flesh, holding onto the dirty auricular in her hand with a bunch of shriveled paper tissues in between to avoid any skin-to-surface contact. He had braced himself for tears when he saw her pulling them out of her purse, at first, not quite ready for any melodrama when he saw her. 

Mom was the same. Same height, just about the same weight, he could guess, still refusing to wear any spandex or any of that uncomfortable looking shit Duncan had seen older women forcing themselves into to hide any rolls or love handles, just throw some Carolina Herrera pencil skirt and blazer combo on her and she was ready to go. What he was trying to say with all this crass inner commentary was Annette was still just as beautiful, the aristocratic semblance of hers had remained untouched since the last time he had seen her, and that had been well over ten months ago. 

He couldn’t believe she had the guts to show up a day late to his birthday. And he had thought her scenes at drunk brunches had been bad, this was a whole new level of cringeworthy.

“Sorry, I digressed,” he dismissed, shaking his head at himself while staring at the greasy surface of the table he places his arms onto, “I had been wanting to talk to you about that day for weeks now and I knew it wasn’t precisely smart to do it through a phone, as you can tell.”

“Of course it wasn’t,” she agreed, “I’ve told you we never know who’s listening.”

“Is anyone still paying attention to us, to begin with?” he interrupted.

“Duncan”

“President Underwood has everything going for her right now. She’s got the support of her people, of her peers, she’s gotten back on the horse after giving birth, she’s taken us out of the way. I don’t see why she could bother with us in particular, she just doesn’t have the time,” he explained.

“I know her,” Annette insisted, “I know she’s just waiting for another slip to sink us further, I don’t want to give her anything to use against us—you laugh at me? Funny that you do considering it was her who put you in this fucking joint! She’s watching us, Duncan, she’s getting off on this.”

He sighed, “Nah, that’s just you projecting your insecurity on her as always.”

“Excuse me?”

“Claire Underwood doesn’t care about us. She’s got the allies with the money, she’s got the public image she was aspiring to have, she has the whole fucking world wrapped around her finger trapped inside this victim-y narrative. She owned this  _ Me Too _ movement and rode the Francis Underwood hate wave just like we feared she would do. We thought she wanted to erase him, I know, I was the one who suggested she did it with our help.”

Duncan leaned closer to the glass until his nose was inches away from touching the cold surface, he could see the discomfort painted across his mother’s features and disregarded it quickly for he knew she needed someone to be transparent with her for once.

“But she didn’t want that. She didn’t want to erase him, she just wanted to play with that memory and shape it to her will, to her convenience, make it fit the narrative she wanted to feed us with. And it’s worked. Why? Because as flawed as it is, that narrative is more genuine than any kind of bullshit uncle Bill could’ve came up with when he was alive.”

She gritted her teeth, but lost no poise “I’d appreciate you didn’t bring your dead uncle into this conversation.”

“But it’s true! It’s true! You knew from the beginning that he was a piece of shit. I knew he was a piece of shit. He cheated on his wife constantly, he got people killed to get to where he was, he played every game in the book and it worked. Honestly, I’m not all that mad over Claire using him as some form of manipulation tactic for the public. They love revenge stories, just look at  _ Gone Girl _ . Fucking idolized. Like she wasn’t an asshole herself, if not worse.”

Annette was holding onto the bridge of her nose and trying to focus on the state of her acrylic nails, her throat bobbed almost constricted when she swallowed down, shaking her head as to gain some time to herself to come up with something. 

“I said all I was asking you how your birthday was”

“Uneventful,” he deadpanned, “My family didn’t take notice, not the small portion that’s still alive, anyway. How was your sunday?”

“I was busy.”

“I figured. Must have been important.”

“It was. And if you gave yourself the time to listen you’d understand is in your best interest that it was.” she whispered. 

She was still clutching tightly on the auricular, a piece of tissue had slipped from under her hand, leaving her thin fingers unprotected “I’m trying to find a way to get you out of here.”

Duncan laughed, “How are you planning on doing that? Groveling for a pardon from Madame President? Didn’t that blow up on your face big time the last time you tried it?”

That was a valid observation, but from the looks of it Annette’s convictions were unwavering, she let him talk with twin flames in her gaze just waiting for the right moment to pounce; he had seen that look in her eyes in the past, whenever she managed to outsmart her brother which was quite often. It was one of Duncan’s simplest pleasures, that look of self-sufficiency in her eyes, the gleam of devilry within them.

Whoever felt daring enough to investigate, would clear out any doubts they had on Annette’s parentage with Duncan the second she looked that way, her son had grown into her living image, and to see them side by side sporting that very look, well, it was just sinister.

“Yes, but,” she tempted with a new edge to her voice, she leaned closer to the glass pane as had Duncan “That is not the only way I had to make her cooperate, I thought there were other methods of coercion that could come into play, if she continues to be irrational.”

“That’s just fucking ridiculous, mom!” he whined, “You seem to forget the whole fuckfest she put us under after we tried to play it that way! You’ve gone way under the bridge, she has no fucking intentions of being rational, anymore. And who can blame her? The water plant incident, remember? The defamation? The affair you snuck under her nose for over two decades?” his voice grew into a quiet hiss “The attempted murder stunt you pulled off when she was fresh into the office?”

Annette looked around nervously as she hushed him with desperate hand gestures.

“Shut up! Shut up! I told you that was Bill! It was Bill’s idea, not mine, he was trying to get back at her after she scrapped the whole fucking thing we had been building with Frank! I always, always urged him not to and he didn’t listen. I’m aware of the circumstances, so don’t put the blame on me for that setback.” 

“I thought you didn’t want to bring my dead uncle into the conversation?”

“Oh, if I could fucking punch you right now. Trust me, I would.” 

He began to nod, his attention shifting from the unsuspecting guard a few feet away from Annette back to the door and back at her. Sometimes fixing onto nothing, there was not much he could turn his gaze to in order to look distracted, it was quite simply useless.

“This family is fucking done for,” he said flatly.

“It is,” Annette agreed, “But I’m still finding a way to get you out of here.”

“Any ideas?”

“A couple of’em.”

“And any clue of how much longer I’ll have to stay here?”

She shook her head no, pressing her lips into a thin line “Can’t make any promises yet, Duncan.” 

That was honest enough. It was a good enough of a excuse, all things considered, it was almost meaningless and feeble to think about it now Annette had taken the actual time to check up on him, if only she had done that much sooner! He wouldn’t have been pacing and overthinking like a total jerk convinced that his mother couldn’t care less about him, and that as long as she had someone to tend to the books and make a couple public appearances there would be no problem. Was it gullible of him to think he was valuable for the company, after all? To think he meant more to his mother than a wild night in the sack and a controversial story to gloat on? Perhaps it was, there was no way for him to know, though. 

“Right now all I care about, is that you’re healthy and that you’re safe. I can see you’re eating well enough,” she breathed while giving him a appreciative look over to his much more muscular figure, arms that once barely fit his suit sleeves now stretching the edges of his jailhouse uniform—he felt his fingers loosening and tightening around his own auricular under her examining gaze, for Annette had never hidden her dislike for his tattoos “I am hoping the shrink doctor I spoke to has stayed true to his word and kept an eye on you, as he promised.”

“Well…”

“What?” she asked with a little bit of urgency, sitting right up against her seat.

“He hasn’t  _ exactly  _ kept an eye on me, but he has an underling of his doing the job. I’m not complaining, though, not all, she’s taken a good care of me.” 

She raised her eyebrows, her suspecting nature shining through before that tiny but relevant piece of information revealed, “She? Like he has a nurse tending to you, or something?”

“A psychiatrist, just like him. She’s much younger, practically just graduated, she finished her residencies and came here thinking he would be a mentor of a sort, but he ended up just handing her the cases he didn’t want to deal with. I’m glad she’s the one taking care of it instead of Doctor Christensen, dude looks like a nuisance.”

“Please tell me you’re not fucking her, Duncan,” she nearly begged.

His eyes blew wide, he had suspected that kind of reaction was easy to come by when one was talking to and about Annette, but for to her put it so bluntly caught him by surprise. He had to suppress the urge of smirking like a fucking insolent, perhaps it was just an assumption and not a reality but he was not opposing to that idea. Hell, he was not. 

In a way it would have been easier to say he was, it would have been easier to have that secret to confess however explosive her reaction would have been, easier than dealing with the rush of adrenaline that shot right across his chest and into his groin, which was enough to have him bouncing his leg uncomfortably, carefully reaching down to fix himself in his pants.

“You offend me!” he cried with a wounded voice.

“It wouldn’t be the first time you—”

“I would never do such a thing!”

“You got the Cruz girl in a mess after all the shit you stirred—”

“To say I’d fuck my therapist! he continued, in theatrical fashion.

“Just promise me you won’t be doing anything of that nature. Please.”

Duncan proceeded to laugh, a deep, delicious, pleasant kind of sound that reverberated inside his chest and filled his whole body with excitement. To think of his Mallory, what a great pleasure it was! It was a relief, yes, a balm, he had missed even the thought of her so dearly; and he admonished himself mentally for having neglected her even in his mind. Immediately, he thought of her timid lips, her tender eyes, the way the delicate tressels of her hair smelled and the warmth of her body pressing into his when he held her. 

His breathing got heavy when he remembered it. His sweetness, the way she made him feel like he was just a normal man again, not someone’s heir, someone’s prisoner. Just a man. Just Duncan. If well fleeting he knew that moment had kept him alive during that awful day, than to know she cared for him, hell, that she had agreed to give him her friendship, it was enough to make him feel like he was the happiest, the most privileged.

He missed her. A day was all that had passed and he missed her. Fuck, he was whipped.

“Don’t worry, mom, I’ll keep it professional. I just thought you would like to know of her,” he half lied, “After all, it was her who saved me from getting my shit rocked during the brawl the other day. She snuck me into her office and fed me after one of the guards tried to take me away. She’s taken care of me ever since she started treating me. She’s good.”

“I’ll have to thank her, then,” she hinted.

“Maybe, yeah, that would be nice.”

“Is Doctor Christensen giving her any of the money I’m sending him?”

Duncan wrinkled his face “No, but she doesn’t want any. She told me herself he offered a part of his payment when he handed the case down to her, but she refused, it felt unethical.”

“Who refuses getting any extra money? I’m pretty sure this place has a shit pay.”

He shrugged “She insists she’s not selling herself. No price tag on her forehead.”

She tilted her head knowingly.

“My dear, _ everyone _ has a price. She’s just too shy to tell hers, that’s all.”   
  


⚫ ⚫ ⚫

She had hoped the course of time would lessen the weight atop her shoulders, that eventually enough she would be able to look at the walls and not replay the chaos that took place within them, but ironically enough every time she felt like she was finally reaching a semblance of some peace of mind, something came back to remind her of the horror she endured. It was a worn out tape that played on loop with distorted images and radio static.

It was torture. 

No, it wasn’t getting any easier. It beats her why, perhaps it was the ongoing investigation, the urge to bury the harm caused under piles of paperwork; cue her memory drifting back to a morning months ago when she walked into the precinct unaware of what the day would hold, today she was also holding onto herself, not to shield herself from the airs of an early winter, but to keep any thoughts from slipping, to keep the hell that was breaking loose inside her from seeping through her pores. It was humiliating, to find herself hiding, find herself wanting, she hated to remember that day because to remember it was to remember Duncan. His scent, his voice, the look on his face.

His earnest relief, the feeling that he planted in her, her urge to keep him safe.

“...Then this Murphy guy gets up—” head of security Ezequiel Rodriguez reenacted standing in front of the meeting room table, the chair disregarded somewhere against a wall, he swings his arm back and forth again in slow motion, clenching his fist as though he held a knife “—stabs the first inmate here, missing the lung for a quarter inch, pulls the chicken-bone-knife right out and plunges it back in, this time breaking a rib.” 

Mallory coiled in her seat, her face deprived of color. 

“Then the two inmates sitting next to the other guy, Thomas, his name is Thomas O'Connor, thanks. Well, they jump right in and try to rip him off from him and obviously it’s a shit show now,” a grimace crosses the sand-colored, handsome face “But somewhere in that cafeteria some asshole sees it as a good time to join the fight with someone two tables over. That’s the one that lost the tooth, they found it next to a trash bin, mixed with blood, and vomit, and a bunch of disgusting shit that looked kinda grayish.”

“Those were the mashed potatoes, man” 

Dr. Christensen says from his chair where he rocks nonchalantly and everyone laughs, Mallory doesn’t. 

In reality this sort of feels like the loneliest she’s ever been. The week had been a mess, and it was barely just monday. Perhaps she wouldn’t be as tired if she hadn’t made herself come to Airway Heights the day before instead of resting at home, what had started like a brief visit to Duncan for his birthday and an impromptu meeting with the staff of her floor, who were being told the new security measures including new staff passes due the disappearance of a few during the brawl which were yet to be found, ended up stretching into a labor day long charade. Everyone needed a favor, everyone pretended to care about her wellbeing.

Yet no one seemed to notice the uneasy look in her eyes. 

“Anyway, the whole thing was a fucking mess. Took seven of us to take the improvised weapon from the dude’s hands, he was put in solitary immediately. Daniel, I trust you can arrange him moving to an empty cell, right?”

He looked unbothered by it “We have no vacancy right now, the few single cells we had left were occupied after those transfers from Pierce County,” Daniel went on, playing with the sleeve of his shirt without making eye contact, “I’ll put him with a roommate on surveillance and move him to a single once we get a check-out. I heard we’re getting a few third degree assaulters out at the end of the month, if not we can always put him back in solitary.” 

Ezequiel eased, but remained alert “Sure you can handle it?”

“Why couldn’t I?”

“I just think it’d be a better idea to just leave him, there, instead of putting more people at risk.”

Daniel made an annoyed face, slurring the words out “He’s not gonna. Listen. He’s not gonna hurt anybody, just stop worrying. I don’t have the time to deal with this shit.”

“Yeah, nowadays you don’t have time to deal with anything,” Mallory snapped, darting her eyes towards Daniel’s secretary, Brenda, suspiciously.

And it had initially just been a thought, she had no intentions of letting it slip that way, yet she did. Mallory braced herself for the impact, but the room was dead silent; Daniel wasn’t saying anything back, Ezequiel straightened himself and pulled swiftly at his jacket with a, expression that somewhat looked like he agreed, but couldn’t really bring himself to say so. The entire thing had given her a rush of adrenaline, like she wasn’t anxious enough. 

“So well?” she said, looking at Ezequiel this time.

“Well, I,” he shifted awkwardly, dragging the chair back into place making a little more noise than necessary “I guess we follow Daniel’s orders and we assign him a cell mate. Each floor has two guards that go up and down the hallway from opposite directions, anyway, that should be enough.”

“Not if you have a _ psychopath _ with a tendency of making makeshift weapons out of  _ food _ , you don’t know if he’s gonna be collecting plastic utensils or pieces of chicken to make another knife again,” this one time it was Roberta who spoke, she was sitting directly across from Daniel.

He, of course, didn’t look too worried about it. Though Brenda kept looking down at her phone nervously and playing with the papers she was holding from a corner of the room. Mallory cursed herself inwardly, why the fuck did she have to do that? Wouldn’t it be easier for everyone if she played along with the charade? Let’s be honest, everyone in that room was very much aware Dr. Christensen’s meetings and chiropractic appointments were not the only thing of his Brenda was handling. It was bad. Bad. It was even worse taking in consideration Daniel had two four-year-old twin girls and a wife waiting for him at home.

Mallory rolled her eyes, feeling a familiar heaviness in her stomach.

What was it with her and her proclivity of being surrounded by cheaters? 

She found it inexcusable, but those involved in those situations were easy to weed out once it became a subject of conversation. They dismissed it, found excuses, made it look like it was not the worst thing in the world—and it a way it was not—but it disgusted her, regardless. Thoughts of her mother playing pretend in a marriage she was still into, of a sibling she never saw being born and never got the chance to hold, stories of the great and powerful using their money as an excuse for their distaste for social norms. They all joined the already convoluted cork board that was her mind, the red strings frayed, the pictures dusty. Perhaps she was being a bit of a… puritan, a hypocrite at most. But still. 

“If he’s a psychopath as you say, shouldn’t he be under some sort of treatment?”

Mallory gaze flicked Roberta to Daniel frantically, having understood the underlying message right the way “Fuck that, don’t look at me!” she cried, cross-armed “If you think he needs some treatment provide it yourself.”

Her friend was not as affected by the comment as her, thankfully.

“Yeah, let’s not… do that.” 

Ezequiel followed, “You can’t solve everything with a twelve step program or—or some sort of neurotypical oriented counseling program, he needs medication, tomographies, some actual strong shit.”

“What makes you think we have the budget to do that?” Daniel shrieked, beratingly. 

He shrugged, “We can always ask for a transfer. What? We get transfers here all the time I don’t know why there should be an issue with transferring Murphy elsewhere.”

“Yeah, how about West Virginia?” Roberta suggested half jokingly, wishing to put as many distance between them as possible “Alcatraz? Fucking, I don’t know, Maine?”

“He’s going in solitary as soon as something comes up, period.” Daniel declares, and the tone of his voice dictates just much he  _ doesn’t _ want to talk about it. Better to skip over the puddle of water than to mop it and having to get his hands dirty.

“Bullshit...” she whispers.

“What’d ya say?” he asks.

Mallory clears her throat and raises her voice “I said  _ use it _ , the cells in solitary.” 

In complete fulfillment with his unfulfilling decision, Daniel nods. The subject of conversation is then forgotten, leaving behind the rustling feeling of air and energy shifting in the room; the sudden vitality that comes along with knowing the meeting is over, somewhere deep inside their minds their limbs in the most pavlovian way respond to it as though they had heard a school bell ring. None of those present seem to have anything left to say, despite how urgent it would be to do so, only the anxious scratching of Brenda’s ballpen as she scribbles _ “I NEED TO TALK TO YOU” _ on her notepad to Dr. Christensen, fills the room in insistent scribbles. Saying this they all part, their minds made up.

Not a brain cell left in sight. 

⚫ ⚫ ⚫

_“Hey, Mallory! Mal! Mallory!”_

The woman turns swiftly on her heels as the dull echoing she soon enough identified to be Roberta calling after her brought her back to reality, she was halfway down the path between the first and second floor steps, and the space is bathed in a sickish shade of green proper of fluorescent lights reflecting on oily paint. Her heart is racing, and it feels as though there is a razor blade caught up in her throat, just unbearable.

“What, what?” she shouts in a whisper.

Her expression might not be the friendliest, her body language if anything defensive, but it does not bother Roberta at all. The motherly gleam in her green eyes remains intact, and the look on her face so knowing and open makes her feel equal parts of guilty and relieved.

“You’ve been absent and snappy all day,” she observed.

“I’m just… exhausted. I’m exhausted, I don’t wanna be here if I feel unsafe.” 

She had sounded like she had been just about to cry, which was humiliating.

“You’re working at a prison, baby, of course is overwhelming,” Roberta said soothingly, her soft palms came to rest on Mallory’s cold arms, she sniffled, helplessly “I understand Daniel is being an absolute dickhead and his decision making skills leave a lot to desire but everything will be alright.”

Much to her mortification, Mallory wept. Unable to keep it in any longer, unable to keep fighting the terror and shame that were weaving a rope inside her. It had been a good while since she last cried, matter of fact it must have been since the day she found her old college score cards and ended up thinking about Michael. The situation she was in was dreadful, having to deal with all of her own emotional baggage and also other people’s was enough to make her want to scream.

She needed it to stop, everything. And she needed to stop worrying.

“I called him out in a room full of people!” she sobbed.

“As you should.”

“What the fuck was I thinking?” she continued, reaching up to knit her fingers in her scalp, making a mess out of her updo in no time, “He’s gonna get me fired, I’m into so much trouble.”

Roberta chuckled warmly, dismissing her seemingly thoughtless worries “Everyone knows he’s getting it on with his secretary, literally no one will care you suggested it during a staff meeting. Trust me.”

“Oh, Bertie…” Mallory lamented with streams of tears coming down her cheeks, shaking her head no slowly with her voice lowered to nothing but a whisper “...What happened at the meeting is not what I’m talking about.”

Her brow knitted suspiciously, leaning in for a little more privacy. Mallory swallowed thick.

“This whole thing brings me back to some serious bad shit I’ve done,” she confessed, “I got into some trouble back when I was still in school, Roberta. I had this affair, with my Theology professor, he was married but separated when it all happened; and it ended up pretty badly when his wife found out, it was a small community college in my hometown, everyone found out, and my mother has pretty much been treated like a pariah even after I was gone. Seeing this, living this in the flesh and having to look at his face knowing in a way I’m helping I… I just…”

Roberta shook her head, “Nah, Mallory. None of that. You don’t have to do anything you don’t wanna do, if a married man like Daniel is fooling around behind his wife’s back that’s on him, not you. Just because you did a bad thing and because you were involved once with a married man doesn’t man you should go around with pebbles in your purse waiting to stone whatever woman you see it’s tangled up in that same sort of shit.”

“You’re not the mistakes you’ve made, Mallory. You cannot let those things haunt you, otherwise they’ll make you go crazy or follow you forever.”

Mallory nodded, not having expected that sort of reply from her. The righteous woman.

“Why aren’t you upset with me?” she asked her weakly.

She scoffed, “You think I don’t know what it's like to get involved with the wrong kind of man? Did you ever stop to think whether or not I got a mister outside these walls? No, because you mind your business. And that’s the way it should be. It doesn’t matter whether you married in white or snuck around with someone you didn’t have to. None of us is entitled to judge you for what you’ve done, nor should we feel in the right of holding it against you.” 

“What I did had way more repercussions than I thought it would. The whole thing made me move away from everything and everyone I knew of, so I don’t know, I guess it sickens me having to deal with people that believe what they’re doing is harmless.”

Roberta shrugged, “That only shows you’re still sane of mind and learned from your mistakes, baby,” Mallory sighed, now wrapped inside her arms, letting someone comfort her for the first time in what felt like forever, “That just proves you didn’t become the garbage you were surrounded by. You won’t make that mistake again, Mallory, that’s all that matters.”

Another pair of eyes flooded her mind and made her open her own. In her arms, she shuddered, prisoner of yet another fateful and inescapable realization. It was starting to feel pretty unlikely that she had learned anything. Anything at all.

⚫ ⚫ ⚫

Mallory must have underslept that night, he thought, for she looked anxious and tired. 

Duncan sat once again in front of her desk, thankful for not having to wear those hideous handcuffs that had restrained him before, comes to be that young guard that had kept the other company during the mutiny was poor Alfred’s replacement, and this one was far easier to bribe. Just a couple crumbled bills and he had agreed to remove the cuffs as soon as they were out of sight, letting Duncan move freely during their sessions if so he wanted to. 

It felt good to be somewhat closer to the man he was before, to not feel like a caged animal even if by as much as having free hands. The handcuffs were simply unnecessary, and almost insulting, he would never hurt his Mallory. If anything he would run his fingers through her hair, and cup her cute face gently if so she let him. 

They had spoken a lot the day before, but still he had a lot of questions. 

What was upsetting her so? 

“That frown is gonna give you wrinkles…” he mused, the face of innocence and self-sufficiency as she went through a book behind him, near her desk. 

Mallory looked up from it and chuckled tiredly when she saw him smile, “Stop that. It’s been kind of a difficult day, that’s all.”

“It’s that why you’ve been so distant all day? You look miles away from me.”

_ “I’m right here.” _ she told him softly.

“Yes, I know.”

For a moment or two he debated himself on what to do, what to say to make her feel more comfortable. He treasured their friendship of a sort, he had never expected her to agree on what he wanted, let alone oblige him. But she did. And from the day before something started changing between them, exhausted Mallory was vulnerable enough to let her guards down and watch her professional persona dissipate in the air like fog leaving behind just a young doubtful woman letting herself be affected by some silly little thing. Just another mortal. 

He looked at her, all pout and disappointed frown, and ached by wanting to kiss that crease atop the bridge of nose so badly  _ “tell me what’s wrong, my darling, let me make it better” _ he would beg her, matter of fact it was clear enough if you looked into his pleading eyes. There was nothing else he wanted to do then as much as he wanted to hold her. 

“Friends don’t lie to each other,” he then bit, sinking into his seat when she turned to face him with judging eyes. Mallory was unaware of it apparently, but she had been pacing back and forth around her office for ten minutes now. Duncan was starting to suspect the chamomile tea she had poured them both was getting cold. 

“I’m not lying to you. I just said I’m just right here.”

“But you didn’t tell me what really happened,” he pointed.

Mallory sighed, giving up “They won’t put Murphy in solitary. They will only move him from his cell if he misbehaves and I’m starting to get worried it was not a one time thing. Even if he says he does, I’m worried something will happen again and he’ll snap.”

It was Duncan’s turn to furrow his brow, shifting in his seat “They will put him in a cell with someone else?” he asked, perplexed “Dude stabbed the other guy at his table just because he refused to lend him a knife.”

“Yes, not lending him stuff is what triggers him. Go figure.”

“Why don’t they transfer him, then?”

“Because Doctor Christensen is an unbothered bitch, that’s why.”

Was her foul language suddenly not just making him laugh but also turning him on? More likely than you think. “This isn’t your subtle way to tell me I’m getting a new cellmate, is it?” he teased. Mallory widened her eyes in terror.

“Of course not! I don’t want you ten feet away from that guy, Duncan! God.”

He sighed, “Okay, great. Just checking.” 

“Do you…” she stopped in her tracks, probably realizing she had never asked him about his social life in jail before, “You don’t have any cellmates, do you?” 

“Thankfully no.”

Mallory looked confused, “Why don’t you—? Oh, of course,” she sighed, dropping onto her own seat “Must have figured that one yet.” 

Duncan laughed again and she soon followed, there was something comforting in knowing Mallory did not mind he used his money for his advantage. He was being harmless, anyway. The unspoken mention of his prison privileges must have reminded her of his family, also, because that’s what she spoke of next.

“Have you heard anything from your family?”

He nodded, “My mother came to visit just this morning.”

“How did it go?”

“Good, I told her about you.”

“Oh…” her voice dropped, visibly uncomfortable with being mentioned in something else than unwarmed staff members lists and boardroom meetings. Duncan soon enough searched for a way to make it better, make her see it was not a bad thing. 

“She wants me to  _ thank you, _ ” he told her in his utmost gracious voice, one that only reminded her of the gallant man she had seen in articles and magazines, well-carried and infinitely well-spoken “For everything you’ve done for me thus far.”

“It’s so odd to think Annette Shepherd of all people knows my name.”

“Beautiful name, should I mention. She told me it was ironic considering our circumstances the other day. The Unlucky One, it means. It’s like the put the label on your forehead.”

Mallory sipped from her tea, chuckling “I will have to agree with you on that. Was talking to your mother today any good? How are you feeling about it?”

“It’s was fucking strange to see her and feel like for her nothing has changed at all. She looks the same, acts the same, sounds the same. But I feel like I’m a completely different person, like we’re not on the same wavelength anymore, and I don’t know how that’s gonna work out for me once I’m out. It’s kind of depressing, really.” 

“Isolation, it’s going to take a toll on you. After you get out it’s only natural you struggle a bit to readjust to the outside world. You might not connect yourself to the things you used to after being away all this time.”

“I might be a little more complicated than that…”

Curiously, she narrowed her eyes and tilted her head to a side, the cup of coffee lingering an inch below her rosy mouth “Should I ask about it? Or should I assume it has to do with your, say, professional antics?”

“The latter.”

“Okay, I’ll let it die, then.” 

“Thank you, by the way…” he said, quietly “For making the exception today and tending to me even if it’s only Monday. I take it your week is full, anyway, so I was not expecting you would agree to meet me today.”

She smiled, tucking a strand of wavy hair back in place, “It’s okay, I knew maybe it would be best if I kept an eye on you today, considering everything that’s happened in the last week. I suppose you wanted to share your mom’s visit with me—” Duncan nodded, “—so it was no issue, really.”

“I must confess I’m a little paranoid about all this thing, I’m checking up on all my patients earlier than their usual appointments because of it. Some of them had minor injuries and others were far too scared to think about it any longer. The downside of treating minor risk inmates is many of them are here for petty crimes, they did not expect this level of danger.”

“I sure didn’t.”

“You sure didn’t.”

No, it would have been much easier if she related him to the same kind of petty criminals. She didn’t. If anything there was an untraceable line in between the outside world and the decay she had come to meet within the bricks and pipes of this sad, hideous castle. Where everyone was keyman and prisoner, where the world had stopped somewhere with decades floating by in a parade of plastic ghosts, littering their snow and stomping heavy feet. The same weight that dragged him down dragged her also.

But no, it wasn’t easier even when the day is over and left were only stains and embers. It tainted her further to feel like she wanted, like she needed him close to keep this place mildly bearable, to lift the cross she carried from the ground and push her forward. Her unspoken motivation, unspeakable motive. Mallory tried and hopefully succeeded to hide what in between thoughts would lie, the lingering wish of them being elsewhere. Being different.

Perhaps, and this was a sullen thought, Duncan Shepherd would have never seen had hadn’t it been for the fact they were both trapped in this prison. They were strikingly different, to begin with, even if she had not ended up working there she would have probably landed a blue collar job somewhere, maybe one morning he would have walked in to get some coffee and his name would not be typewritten on a file but scribbled on a styrofoam cup; not like there was anything wrong with it, the job, at times she wished that’s what she were dealing with instead of this. To deal with the demons of the punished was nothing short of painful, for every word they shared, every nightmare they described clung to her like wet seaweed near a rocky shore. To feel it coil around her ankles with every step she took served if anything like a reminder or where she was, a menace of a coming wave ready to wipe her out.

Just run a little quicker to the sand, little girl, even if you’re tired. 

“Come sit with me, Duncan, let’s not sit under these lights.”

“Wanna go to your lounge area?” he joked, shifting his gaze towards the sofas further in.

“Yeah, I’d like that,” she chuckled, “This chair is killing me.” 

Duncan did not ask her if she needed help moving their tea to her coffee table, he just did. It was terrifying, exhilarating to see him in such position, coexisting in her same space as though he was nothing but an old friend. Which he clearly was not. Perhaps she should have been offended, outraged by how easily he blended with the environment around them, making every little gesture look domestic, making this forsaken place some sort of altar at the thieves’ midst. 

He effortlessly placed their cups on the glass surface and took a sit by her side on the two seat sofa pressed to the wall over choosing to sit on one of her single chairs directly across from them; Mallory nervously chewed on the inside of her cheek, trying not to think much of it. 

As though she were a schoolgirl left alone with a quarterback on the bleachers, Mallory looked down at her hands, toying with the black mesh sleeves of her dress, if only there was a single thread to pull at. It would make this distress much easier to cope with.

“You know what?” she whispered, waving her light hair over her shoulder to look at him, and to do so was a turmoil of its own; his ice-looking eyes peered back at her with a pinch of nonchalance that she could have almost have mistaken for secrecy “When all of this is over, I’m taking a vacation.”

Too late she noticed maybe her comment was insensitive. But if he was hurt by it he didn’t show it, matter of face he only smirked at it, sipping on his own tea, devoid of any worries. And it was easy to be like this, whoever troubling, perhaps she could be the friend he wanted her to be; be the one small chance he needed to make this captivity easier to live in. And she would be proud, then, once he was out, for having played the part that he needed.

Even if suddenly the idea of him leaving was killing her. 

“A vacation is exactly what you need, Mallory,” he agreed, and as he did he pressed his back further into his seat. This resulted in his arm brushing her own, and the warmth that came from his body was a hellish promise, call it a sin, and opportunity. It made no difference. “Somewhere sunny in the world where you don’t have to think of all this bullshit.”

“I wish it was so easy,” she said mostly to herself. 

“No one would end up here by choice, I take it, so I understand.”

Mallory mimicked his gesture sinking back, both of them were pressed flat into the sofa, heads turned to the other in undivided attention. At this point, tension was penting up, no precedents for such. None but every single fucking minute they had spent together from the moment they first met. In the shadows of somebody else’s mind she began to make out a blurry outline she could only identify as hers, occupying the air that he breathed, the images tattooed onto his lids when he closed his eyes.

That’s when she realized Duncan Shepherd was sitting pressed next to her, and he was breathing heavy. Her own hands hanging ghostly like she was afraid to feel her wrists pressing on the satyr etched on his arm, for it only made more ridiculous. 

She cleared her throat, chuckling, the only remedy she found to fill the air, awkward as she was. “I suppose you’re suggesting you’re not the only prisoner sitting in this room.”

“Well, am I?”

“You aren’t.”

The look of his eyes was crestfallen, as though it pained him to think she was unhappy at this place, to be confessed such thing in secrecy, and in a way that could only be deemed inappropriate. Unbeknown to her, Duncan had once again thought of that strange concept of friends Annette fed him all those years ago. 

There it was playing the same old film of a hot summer night, the record playing much to their uninterested ears, Frank and Annette sitting at the library with glasses of wine in hand. A friend, she called him, a friend whose arm hung behind her frame, lazily laughing as to fill the air in between kisses, give themselves an excuse for their bodily hunger, their immense disinterest for one another, the flawed nature of everything they called theirs.

Duncan had already been born and still Annette had the same timid response to Frank’s unforgiving attention. But, oh, how it thrilled her. He could feel it. Crouching on a corner where he could remain unseen, just looking. Looking at whatever they felt like doing.

Why couldn’t Duncan and Mallory be friends like that? 

He felt the unequivocal fear of running out of time taking over him, of needing to do something. Beside him sat a damsel, after a moment of consideration he concluded she was in no distress, but it was all the same if she was unhappy. Why, he had to try, at least for once, in the slightest, to step in and change that.

Not like a man in his condition could do much to make her happy. But he could try. 

“Bora Bora” he blurted.

“Excuse me?”

Mallory felt herself drifting from a nerves induced daydream, one in which she could say what she was thinking. Tell him she was sorry for taking advantage of the situation, of smoothing her skirts down and sitting back somewhere further from him even though that would most likely offend him. This had been her idea, of course, she was already regretting that stupid idea. 

Yes, she had to break apart. This was unacceptable, she had just cried into Roberta’s shoulder over everything she had done wrong in the past, and it was utmost cynical to judge Daniel and Brenda if she was doing the same thing. 

But he smiled, timidly so, which immediately made her suspicious.

“Bora Bora, I think that would be a place of your liking.”

“Maybe,” he continued once she remained silent, “You could tell your husband to take you there someday.”

Mallory fought to find her voice for a moment.

“I’m… I don’t have a husband.” she stammered.

“Is that so?” he inquired, surprised. 

She didn’t like the tone of it, the voice of him had changed entirely. Half teasing, half knowing, intimidating altogether. Mallory intended to pry her gaze from his, but she was afraid maybe he would draw her back in or so hold onto her chin to keep her pinned in place, however it softened slightly when his body began to shift and lean towards her.

Underneath all those layers of nonchalance, of every sad childhood story shared, the baffled look on his face when he had found her running in that courtyard, she found an expression that made her blood run cold. Admiration, of the most blatant kind, was painted across his features. And it had been so long since she had last been seen that way by a man.

No one since her dear Michael, she reminded herself. As though she could make a faithful bond out of an unfaithful memory; such gave no reply, leaving her alone in the darkness, leaving her with no form of protection before him.

His voice was a brazen caress that ripped as it touched.

“You’re such… a beautiful woman, Mallory…” he whispered. 

Fright had frozen her in place, unsure whether her blushing cheeks were product of being scared or being flustered. They must have been burning, it was too late for her to tell either, for he reached forward to press a surprisingly soothing palm over her cheek, the size covering a great portion of it, and virtually bringing her breathing to a harsh halt. 

“How come no one’s claimed you?” 

“Duncan…” she pleaded, silently, feeling humiliated. 

“Had it been up to me…” he confessed, “...You wouldn’t be dealing with such a problem.”

He brought himself closer, slow and tantalizing, like he was weighting every step making sure the floor wouldn’t fall floor underneath his feet, but she could feel it cracking “Please stop,” she begged with the last semblance of willpower she had left. 

That wasn’t much of his liking. 

“Have I been misreading everything?” 

“Yes, you have,” she whispered. 

He kissed her anyway.

It was a mix of soft and harsh. His lips were soft and warm beyond human comprehension, as she had imagined, the moist outline of his inner lips met hers in a soft kiss. Mallory couldn’t bring herself to move, let alone respond it, she just froze, wishing it would soon be over; because, at this point, she had no clue of what to do with herself. His stubbled brushed against her skin, probably leaving behind a scratch mark had she been so unlucky and his left hand held her by a side of her face, lingering slightly at the feeling of her hair against his skin. 

This was completely, utterly mortifying. When she did break apart from it he looked confused, as to he couldn’t bring himself to understand why she hadn’t taken it further; Mallory rushed out of her seat, holding onto herself as she bolted almost all the way across her sitting room. Maddened eyes looking back at him and flicking towards the door as though she had expected someone to catch them in the act.

It would be a little easier to think if the taste of his lips wasn’t imprinted on hers.

“You can’t do that, Duncan,” she said through gritted teeth.

“I…”

“What were you even thinking?” she asked, raising her voice and deliberately lowering it once she was aware of it “You can’t do that, you can’t fucking do that!” 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, now looking heavy hearted, concerned “I didn’t mean to disrespect you, Mallory, I should have taken it more slowly.”

Mallory scoffed, “You shouldn’t have taken it in any fucking way, you can’t touch me that way, that’s completely off limits. That could get me fired, Duncan, if not arrested.” 

“I’m not,” he struggled to begin with, trying to catch his breath “I swear I’m not telling anyone.” 

“How long had you been wanting to do that?” 

The sound of her voice was weaker than intended, and perhaps this also he would take the wrong way. But it felt even worse to think this had only been an act of impulsivity and not something he had actually been wanting, that it was just the action of jumping out an open window rather than sitting by and looking out from it, to search in her what he had been missing from the world trapped in this jailhouse. Hell, she was flooded with thoughts of him, the same she had been having late at night with nothing but the memory of him to keep her company, to see the wickedness in his smile drawn across his face as in her dream he ventured further down her navel, tracing with nails and teeth what she now felt on fire. 

A grim look took over his face, and she could see the vein in his neck protruding over his skin, even worse, she found herself wishing to trace it with her tongue and trace the length of it with her tongue until she had drank in all the salt on his skin. She begged herself to control her urges, she truly did, but that girl was incredibly untrustworthy. 

“You wanna know how long I’ve been wanting to kiss you?”

Her heart jumped in her chest when he stood up from his seat rushing towards her. The closer he got to her the further back she walked with a shaky hand placed behind her, a hand that sadly met a wall soon enough. He was circling like a predator would its prey, to stand way below him made it harder, for he felt like he was everything, everything that was around her. No way escape plan, no excuse, no way out of his trap.

Even the thought he had caged her made her throb painfully, and a rush of warmth gushed out of her, when he stood just inches away from her face, his sweet breath entering her system with each desperate exhalation of his. A part of her was begging her to cave in and let her feel that scent closely, to live in it, it was practically crying for it. 

Her rational brain was completely against it, but the mess in her panties disagreed.

“Mmm…” she hummed, pathetically, “Stop. No, stop. I don’t want to hear it.”

Someone had to take precautionary measures that day, but apparently everyone had failed to do so. That was disgusting enough as it is.

“From the moment I fucking met you.” he hissed into her ear, her body falling lax against the wall, Duncan brought himself down to nuzzle at the nervous sweat that gathered at her throat, sighing and growling against it. Mallory held onto his forearms, trying to stay on her feet, but he only took her gesture as an encouragement to keep going.

When he pressed his chest flat to hers, groin to groin, she was done for.

He was burning, that’s the only way she could describe it. She had never felt a body so soft or warmth, perhaps only in other women. She spent more than necessary studying his figure in pictures when she first conspired on who his father was, and the outline was burned onto her brain, that’s how she knew his frame had changed drastically since his imprisonment. She had guessed the soft, mushy feel of an average body, not a tight and firm wall of muscle underneath his prison uniform. 

She whined, embarrassingly, beginning to rut against him like a bitch in heat hungry for some friction, he chuckled at it, pleased with her and himself, before he crashed his mouth down on hers, this time being welcome rather than pushed away.

His hot wet tongue tangled on her making a considerable amount of spit coat her lips as they became a mess of clashing lips, noses and teeth. Her hands were no longer behind the wall, but slithering up his chest and tangling in fistfuls of his hair, desperately bringing him in. Closer, she needed him closer, but she couldn’t quite figure out how.

Thankfully he did, and his wandering hands came up her legs collecting the fabric of her dress until he pressed his palms flat against the back of her thighs, coaxing her to bend them and wrap them around his waist, he lifted her off the ground without breaking their kiss, only letting it drift down to her throat where he ravished, visibly keeping himself from doing more than just brushing his teeth on her porcelain skin. 

“You’re out of your mind,” she said breathlessly.

“Stop me.” he whispered against her lips. “Stop me.”

Her back met something hard, flat, smooth. Duncan placed her there and she let herself lie on it carelessly, only a couple seconds later she understood he had placed her over one of her tables, and his hands were still gliding up her plush skin, dangerously close to her ass.

“Stop me...” he repeated, now rhythmically rutting into her, dry humping her over layers of clothing. He was not sloppy with even one of his thrusts, it was almost like they were dancing, like they had done it before. Mallory raised and lowered her knees a bit to the tandem of his movements, his hard length pressing furiously against the zipper of his trousers, eager enough to let her feel a certain wetness in between them despite her own.

“Stop me…”

Mallory felt dirty, let her dry fuck her over one of her tables. The realization made her grow wetter, hurriedly brushing up and down her pantieclad slit over his covered cock, just wanting to feel more of it. All sorts of breathy sounds came out of her, it was becoming too much, it was becoming not enough. She needed something else. She needed Duncan to give it to her. 

“Fucking stop me, Mallory, or I’m gonna fuck you right here on this table.”

“Oh, shit,” she moaned, and brought him down into a needy kiss. 

She could feel he needed it too, he had to be close, she could feel him twitching inside his pants, against her, sending more electric shocks right through her core. It would be so easy, she thought, all they had to do was unzipping his trousers and pulling her panties out of the way. They were so close she legitimately got to think she would let him pump her full of cum with no protection, she would worry about it later.

“Stop me… Stop me… Stop me…” he growled, pushing into her in harsh strokes.

His shaky hands came up her hips, tracing her ribs and sides, coming deliciously close to the underside of her breasts. And she needed it, she wanted, she would let him have it. Mallory was not caring anymore. 

They exchanged a hungry look and shared a kiss that was dripping lust and was dripping guilt. Obscenely tangling their tongues and humming into each other’s mouths. Mallory brought her hands to feel his sides, scratch his scalp with her fingernails, hold onto his arms. She was dangerously close to reach the collar of her dress and tug down…

And then her the dream she was living in her flesh came to an end, with a loud and persistent knock on her office door. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It only took, yanno, seven months of my time to get to this point.


	12. Sore Loser

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, m'lovelies! Long time no see. As usual, this will be edited as I read it back, I am planning on taking a moment in the near future to go over all the chapters and smooth some kinks down, as I sometimes overlook details or phrase things weirdly (ESL, anyone?) Anyway! It's so good to see you all again! This update was way overdue, but it is finally here. I'm hoping you will like it, feel free to shout at me on my Twitter, or Tumblr. I'm looking forward to see what you guys think of this one! All my love.

Loss is a funny thing.

When a part of us leaves us, where does it go? 

The pending, lingering feeling of unease that hangs onto us like a lifeline is the only thing left to remind us it was ever there on the first place, but it comes with a much too high a cost. The process of losing and coming to terms with it is—to say the least—bumpy and disastrous. If we’re unlucky enough, not even one from which we can recover. Still we bear hope, hope that drives us to try time and time again; the voice of a woman echoes, somewhere at the distance, waiting for a different outcome. 

Loss is not an easy thing to cope with.

Sometimes is loud, sometimes is quiet. It’s always painful. 

News from Alfred Wiśniewski had been sent to her phone at some point during her drive back home, just a blunt informative message from Dr. Preston Hawkins, who had been checking up on him from the moment he was taken out of Airway Heights, made figuratively and literally a bloody mess. He had lost his eye, as predicted by her the moment she saw him being carried away at the courtyard, though he had successfully recovered from his initial surgery. He would have to heal for a couple of months before another reconstructive surgery could be done in order to somewhat fix the damage done to the left side of his face. But at least he had recovered from his broken eye socket, and most of the mess had been tended to.

He was okay, she was told, but confused. He did not even remember what happened.

Rereading the words again, Mallory settled on her couch with her legs folded under her without even bothering to take off her shoes, her hand hovering from her face to her other arm back to the cushion of the couch. It all felt so wrong, not one thing was alright. Not one. 

Quite frankly, she was beginning to consider the fact things may never be okay again. She had actively participated in everything that had happened, and if well Alfred’s misshapen had not directly been her fault, it was the dismissive nature of her reaction to it what was eating her alive. While holding onto herself, she could see her reflection on the cover of her vintage record player, and noticed something that had been completely overlooked before. It was subtle, so subtle, but the frame of hers seemed smaller somehow; her arms were thinner to the eye and—Mallory held onto herself a bit tighter—to the touch, also.

_ » Outcoming Message, 8:24:17PM: Is he home?  _

She hit send, and waited. 

Her phone rested heavy against her leg and palm, and her nails were scratching lightly at the coarse texture of her glittery acrylic case. After a few minutes she could feel it vibrate against her, and she prompted herself to turn on the screen and swipe at her notifications bar. 

_ » From: Dr. Hawkins, 8:27:42PM: Yes, his girlfriend is looking after him now.  _

Mallory sighed, somewhat relieved. There were so many things she wanted to say, but none of them could be addressed to the right person, nor could she find an easy way to say any of them without sounding like a madwoman. To say she was sorry. To say she wished she could have done something. To wish him best. To wish they could wake up someday and all this nightmare would be over. Every inch of her skin was crawling, no position would bring her ease nor would it make this situation any less awful. 

She might be reaching the status of biblical whore more and more by the day, but now wouldn’t that make her the best person to weep and to lament? Bah, that shit was useless now. What was she supposed to do? Use her forsaken charm to better his ailing? It seemed to be, if a man wished to be damned all he was ought to do was coming her way.

Xavier, from high school. Michael, from college. Duncan, from prison. 

_ Oh, Duncan. _

A locked up secret, a hiss in her mind, a blurry outline she tried and failed to make herself forget. He was now one of the jolly many that had been fortunate, or should she say, unfortunate to get tangled up on her at the worst possible time. She had been hoping and waiting for the day to be over, only if that would mean she could try and make herself erase his scent from her mind, the rough touch from his hands from her skin, that scorched as much as it elated her. 

_ Her, her, her Duncan. Duncan, Duncan, Duncan _ , her mind sang.

But her mind was one with a particular and recognizable lack of skill to detect any danger. 

She had let him kiss her roughly thrown over a table just a matter of hours ago. The hellish tug of his teeth assaulting the soft surface of her throat, blazing her up like she had been thrown into a furnace, rocking again her growing need, gasping hurriedly into her mouth. 

How she hated him. 

That fucking manchild had thrown a temper tantrum into having his way with her, just like she once feared he would. The way he touched her, she thought, it was enough to make the memory fluster and humiliate her; he had been so urgent and demanding, so far removed from the calm and collected persona he showed to the world even at his lowest. No, there were no rulers or saints when he had her, it felt as though all demurement had flown out the window, perhaps it was the time he had been without a woman, perhaps he simply wanted her that badly.

Mallory did not want to think about it. For the life of her she would not think about it. 

Her phone began to ring and she bounced on her spot, ever since the prison brawl incident loud noises came to scare her pretty easily, ringing included. It was odd, for she didn’t recognize the number, but judging by the area code it was somewhere in her same county, so it couldn’t be her mother borrowing some friend’s phone to check up on her, let alone her father, he hated phone calls. Reluctantly, she picked it up, her brow knitted so tightly all of her forehead was full of creases.

“Hello?”

Someone chuckled breathlessly on the other side of the line, and her blood immediately froze.

_ “Hey, gorgeous.” _

“Duncan? H-How’d you get my number?” was all she brought herself to say.

All hopes she had to bury the subject were brushed right off the table in one swift motion, she had expected the entire ordeal to be buried, really, after they got interrupted. It had been Dr. Shapiro knocking on her door, to let her know Dr. Hawkins was well on his way to visit Alfred at the hospital that morning, to help him and his girlfriend to get home safely after being discharged. 

The sound of his voice was enough to make her entire body burn in shame, at the memory of her shaky legs bringing her closer to the door with her heart in her throat while he fixed himself—running his hands through the hair she had disheveled, smoothing his shirt down and, God, flipping and tucking himself attempting to conceal his very obvious erection—catching her breath as though she had not been completely out of herself moments ago. 

_ “I needed to talk to you,”  _ he slurred, completely dismissing her question.

“That doesn’t—”

_ “I missed you.” _

“You can’t call me to my cell phone number, God I—” she puffed out a shaky break “—you shouldn’t be calling me at all! You’ve lost your mind.”

She had been expecting some snarky remark to be sent her way, but all she got was static. For a few moments Mallory thought he had hung up the call, or that signal had gone down, until she heard low breaths steadying from the other side of the line. As who tries to remain calm and collected. “Hello?” she asked.

Duncan cleared his throat, for some reason she could picture him with his eyes shut tight.

_ “I missed you, Mallory.” _

His insistence was a force to be reckoned with, she had to give him that, he had the ability to completely brush off whatever wasn’t of his interest, of blurring lines that should otherwise stay drawn, to try and mess with her head until she had forgotten why she was upset, to begin with. Mallory felt a cold whiplash of mortification running through her, realizing something deep inside her called to him and urged her to listen. Urged her to tell him she missed him, too. 

So much so she could only bring herself to whisper, “Duncan what happened today cannot happen again, you hear me?” steady breaths were white sound at the distance, yet felt close enough for her to have the skin of her throat tingle at the ghost of the warmth of his breath.

_ “Do you regret it?”  _ Duncan asked coolly, after a couple of moments.

“I do,” she stammered. 

_ “Alright…” _ Something about his voice did not let up, though she didn’t let it get to her  _ “...then it won’t happen again” _

“Do you promise?” she stressed.

_ “I promise.”  _

Irrationally so, Mallory couldn’t help but feeling slightly disappointed with his answer. A part of her brain, one with tangled wired and dead shorts she found his prowling flattering, if not exhilarating. 

Only a matter of hours before he had made her lie on a cold wooden surface with her dress ridden up and her lipstick undone, then she had not bound herself to any moralities; matter of fact she had the certainty she was right about to make him pull the sodden fabric of her lilac panties aside and shove his dick raw into her. And Mallory would not have cared whether he was completely hairless, hairy or trimmed under his slacks, she wanted to make him moist with the wetness of her pussy when came around his cock, regardless. She would not have cared if this caveman was gonna finish on her stomach with his purplish head enclosed inside the slick skin of his fist or if he was gonna shoot his cum deep inside; no questions asked.

What an irresponsible, short-sighted, desperate fucking slut! To think the memory of what could have been had his pulsing and shifting on her couch, wondering just how disastrous it would have been if the man happened to make her catch something (unlikely to her, due to time he had spent without getting pussy, though being celibate clearly didn’t equal being clean) or if, terror of terrors, got her pregnant right there in her office. Mallory had not been taking birth control for a long time, Mallory was in no way in the right state of mind to have unsafe sex.

Then why did the thought excited her so? 

A big, thick, and heavy cock stretching her out after years being left untouched, no more company than her own fingers and the plethora of makeshift dildos she had gotten herself ever since her favorite sex toy had decided to die on her; the idea was delicious. Arousal had always been enough to cloud her thinking, causing her to get off on some pretty questionable pornographic videos, causing her to impale herself on bottles and handles of brushes, grinding on her cold sink innocently while brushing her teeth only to end up making herself cum on it. 

It didn’t matter, all that mattered when she was in need was to be filled and to be claimed. Perhaps she could have done what many did and something had a one night stand, but she was fearing the world out there was really dangerous and it was pretty unlikely that she would find someone who would satisfy her needs completely, act on all her kinks and fetishes.

Duncan had changed that about her. She had felt, for once, maybe she was up to a worthy contestant, that he would finally be the one to fit the bit. To thoroughly fuck her. 

Maybe it was the risk and not Duncan himself what Mallory lusted after.

“I’m gonna hang up, Duncan,” she said after a while.

_ “Wait.” _

“What?”

_ “Were thinking about it?”  _ he breathed, his voice had a suggestive edge to it.

Her brow knitted, pearly with sweat. What was the point of lying, anyway? He knew perfectly fine what they had done, what she had let him do, be her a pliant form laid out at his mercy. His to toy with, instead of putting up a fight or at least the slightest semblance of initiative.

Maybe it was easier to play coy, “Thinking about what?” she dodged.

_ “What I did to you…” _ he replied, even through the phone she could feel a lascivious smile tugging at the corner of his lips, raising his voice and spirits, taunting her  _ “How I… pinned you down against that table, how I felt you up real nice, how I shoved my tongue down your throat?” _

She shut her eyes tight, feeling her strengths fading, fighting the urge to hang up.

Duncan let out a raspy laugh,  _ “You were so fucking wet, you stained my pants all over,”  _ Mallory shifted on her seat, running her palm flat against the wet back of her neck. Her skin was on fire at the memory.  _ “I bet I can still smell you on the fabric. I might do just that, when I jerk myself off tonight.”  _

“Stop.” 

Her voice was shaky, and small, barely concealing the shameful wave of arousal that coursed through her, now it was even worse that she had to fight both the sudden pounding in her head, the steady whistle in her ears and the throbbing between her legs. Mallory, all jokes and lies aside, could still with her eyes closed feel the temperature and weight of his hands exploring the plains of her skin like a lover would in those short, torturous moments that came to an end all too soon.

Yet as most human emotions, it grew out of control and the lines blurred at the slightest change of heart; now it was rage she was feeling, now there were tears pricking her eyes when she thought about it. She hung up the phone.

Moments, maybe minutes, maybe even hours after she hung up she could feel adrenaline filling her veins, a deep disbelief that soothed and tortured her by having left him talking to himself in a poorly lit hallway with a greasy auricular clenched in his hand. 

He had promised, he had promised and he had played her anyway. 

She was furious, and scared. But still, furious. 

There’s no piety for saints if not the one of fearing a god above, one’s lies could only equal a deeply rooted hypocrisy that lowers them to the level of heretics. She knew it. Saint Peter would open no gates, Saint Thomas would not believe his eyes or anyone else’s, Saint Jude would see it as a lost cause if so he pleased; if it wasn’t for fear. Once upon a time she left her fear aside, and the consequences were terrible, now she had fallen down the pits she had once crawled out from; and in her infinite foolishness she thought none of it soon thereafter, sold herself cheap wearing guilt like a gilded crown.

Or, rather, the half moon of teeth imprinted onto the pale skin of her throat she found once she forced herself to take a shower and look at her unresting face in the mirror.

It wouldn’t take anyone any time to figure out whose crooked tooth it was. 

  
  
  
  
  


What a bummer it was, also quite an embarrassment. Duncan was dumbfounded, alone with the cellphone pressed urgently to his ear as though he could use telepathy to get her to say something, maybe call him back; that’s when he realized his number was blocked, practically untraceable, and Mallory—as he came to accept—simply didn’t want to talk to him.

This girl’s reasoning was something difficult to deal with, he was growing exhausted with it, being honest. Duncan had been the sole witness of her wavering want, from the very first day. He could still recall it, how the now one-eyed guard led him down that hallway all those weeks ago; Duncan had been expecting to find a robust redhead with freckled cheeks and copperish glasses to invite him in, fiddling with her pen as she shot questions to and fro. 

A glorified high school nurse, he humored thinking for a moment of how he waited for her to put a metaphorical pack of ice over his emotional wounds, completely unaware of the nymph waiting for him at the end of the hall. 

She was different from his mental picture, which each day continued to blur, but her ideals blurred also and Duncan no longer knew what to do; was he to give up? Was he to continue? Who the fuck knew! She lured him in with hushed whispers and wet lips one moment and pushed him away the next, no matter how urgently she had once showed herself to be, how hungry. The surface of his bed was all too soft and all too hard, not the right temperature, not the right texture or scent, he simply felt out of place; kind of like a dusty candlestick placed at the edge of a shelf—he didn’t fit here, he didn’t fit there. He was unaware of what he wanted, all he knew was this wasn’t it. 

Great, now he was anxious. 

It was hard not to be when a disarray of worst case scenarios came flooding in his mind, washing away the traitorous remnants of arousal that deviant of a girl had left behind. Duncan adored her like chardenals did their martyrs and how martyrs did their gods before them, but in the confinement of a lonesome cell with a hung up call and a case of blue balls he couldn’t help but to hate her.

_ “Duncan what happened today cannot happen again, you hear me?” _

But why the fuck couldn’t it? 

Was she going to run for the hills shouting out what they did the second he left her office? Was she, he pondered, going to print it on the papers to smear them both? Duncan looked at the screen of the cellphone Derek had smuggled in for him with his gaze fixed nowhere in particular over the generic mountainside background, and the unnaturally bright colors of the hot air balloon floating above it. It was tempting to smash it, he even held it on his hands daintily fantasizing of the sounds it would make as he made it hit the floor over and over again, the surface made a mess with dark plastic, glass, and circuitry. 

He let out a sigh, and well, he didn’t. 

Instead he felt himself falling lax onto the mattress, a pleasant warmth spreading on his upper back and shoulder blades when he felt himself waning from the tension he had carried all day, choosing instead to revel in the memory. The grin that drew on his face was an odd one, considering he still had a furrowed brow and the smallest hint of a twitch on his lips; seen from upclose it looked like a cruel smile, though one couldn’t really tell his intentions behind his closed eyes. Maybe it was the memory he was mocking.

A wave of euphoria shot up like heroin through his bloodstream. 

It was fast, unforeseen, yet somehow premeditated at the midst of his stirred mind, down he went down letting himself indulge to his desire for just a moment. That was the only kind of joy he was getting these days, anyway, and with the use of muscle memory alone his hand came to brush with the front of his trousers; he rubbed, softly, not caving into himself just yet.

God, he had kissed her. This had to be some sort of alternate reality, or something.

And she had kissed him back so deliciously, her small mouth had been overpowered by his with so little effort— _ Good _ , he thought, he liked to know he could pin her down like this—and he had felt her sweet spit coat his tongue, her timid movements grow bolder.

__ He popped his front button.

The way she sighed, the tremulous way she trapped him as though she feared he would go flying away, as though if it wasn’t sinking into her all the way to the root what he wanted. Fuck, he could still feel the way her movements and gasps begged him for more, how the strands of hair began to thread out from its hairpins. And she rubbed her pussy up against him making a mess out his pants he had to conceal behind his fists when his new guard led him out of her office and the oblivious nerd-looking guy by the door came by to tell her about Armand, or whatever his name was.

Duncan’s fingertips were toying with his boxer’s elastic, but as much as he wished to grasp himself he had to hold himself back with the almost frenetic excitement that took over him. He had a phone now, he could go on the internet if so he wanted, he just had to type out the right words, probably then he would have something a little clearer to rub one out to.

First was Instagram, the profile was empty, and he wasn’t following anyone (it was a fake account, anyway) so he went on the search page out and wrote ‘Mallory Howell’ into the forsaken bar. Nothing came out, just a couple empty profiles and a couple of middle-aged aunts who most definitely weren’t her. His bothered expression was laced with disbelief.

What kind of twenty-something year old didn’t have an Instagram? 

Trying again on Twitter and Facebook came out with as little results as the first one, and though paranoia made him think maybe she knew of this secret little window his and blocked him, somehow, it was against all his better judgement and all sense. The only logical option was that, for whatever reason, Mallory didn’t wish to be so close into reach as most people, and had willingly chosen to stay invisible. 

Duncan only held onto the ridiculous idea of searching for that Lord of the Rings fanfiction account Mallory had once confessed having when she was around fifteen years old, but in no way would that lead him to anything useful or give him any more insight than what she used to ship in her spare time during high school. This was ridiculous. 

With a huff he sat on the bed, his pants undone, a rock hard erection pressing onto the seam. He really wanted, correction,  _ needed _ to cum but all things considered his cock was confused and let’s not begin with how his head was. 

His last wits came flying out of it like cartoon birds flipping him off and left the premises, when he turned to his last resource and typed out her name in the Google search bar.

_ 5.120.000 results, not so bad.  _

It amused him to realize she apparently shared names with an erotica writer, according to Amazon, but his rush didn’t allow him to go on and click or so try to see what else he could find, he needed the quickest, the immediate.

_ « Come on, come on. I just need to see her face. » _

That didn’t work out quite well, that much was easy to see when he shifted awkwardly on his sitting position mostly to get some friction where he needed it most. But then he brought himself to search for her, plus the name of her hometown. Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Now that’s when his utter desperation paid off. 

It was a Facebook post, made by some Madison Montgomery. Duncan tapped it without thinking twice. The entire blue and white color scheme from the Facebook app made him nauseous that late into the day, but he paid it no mind as he began to take in the details.

“With: Coco St. Pierre Vanderbilt, Zoe Benson,  **Mallory Howell** , and three others…”

His breath hitched.

The post had a timestamp of April 24th, 2011, eight years ago. Madison’s miniature icon was on the left side of the header, the picture showed a preppy blonde with bright pink lips and designer shades, but the pictures in question were posted back when no one really gave a shit (posted as public) if lurkers invaded their privacy or not, he shook his head at her, not quite sure if he was to thank her, yet. The title of what he slowly identified as a photo album was “Event Planning Committee Get-Together” followed by a couple hearts, and it showed the outside of a university library decorated with lackluster paper flowers and balloons and a side-swept-banged Madison in the first couple of photos. He could tell it was the right timestamp from the black leggings and graphic tee she was wearing. 

He was about to list it as an unfortunate coincidence when he came across a familiar face seven pictures in.

At first it didn’t seem to be her. She was too tanned, in comparison. Too grinny, too _ bubblegum  _ looking. With a spaghetti strap top with slightly darker pink sequins in a strange design on the front, wearing cuffed washed out jeans and her hair parted in the middle with two thin braids that met in the back of her head; it was much longer, also, and Barbie Doll blonde, styled in curls that got thinner towards the ends of it.

She looked like a completely different person. So dainty, perky, and pink. 

From the unknowing smile, to the lilac eyeshadow around her eyes, to the complete set of strangers in a distant town, he felt himself losing his balance slightly. Not in the way in which he felt like he stepped into a private place, it was public for the world to see anyway, it was just that she looked so far removed from who she was now he was unsure of what to think of her. Even if she was objectively more beautiful now, with her darker hair and thoughtful eyes, and her floral dresses that thankfully had no sequins on them.

Youthfulness had a lot to do with it, he could see from the very surface. Though it made no sense to him why he would be upset over seeing her looking younger and debatably happier maybe it was simply because he grew afraid of what he couldn’t control. Despite it all, he remembered himself pondering on who she happened to be outside these walls, when he even toyed with the idea of Mallory being a wife and a mother, it was more difficult to even conceive such, now that he couldn’t stand the idea of her being either unless he was responsible for it.

Slowly, the arousal that was burning through him began subsiding.

Duncan looked at every single photo in that album, he checked the faces and body language of every single person who was near her and proceeded to check their profiles, also. Most of them married, from what he could tell, still wearing their university t-shirts in family photos, bloating taking over their once fit bodies, hair escaping their scalps. 

Madison had more photos of Mallory back in her college days, mainly those she took with the closest members of their entourage, like Zoe, Queenie, and Coco. She was simply deep in thought looking over her notes in some, chewing on plastic straws at local overpriced cafés and even (to stir his imagination in the slightest) some in which she was on spring break with some of them, wearing tiny striped bikinis and even making obscene faces to the camera as to joke about it; he was equal parts of disgusted and horny when he came across a picture of Mallory and Madison looking at the camera with squinted eyes and tongues outstretched, almost touching. He never quite understood the point of women posing suggestively in photos despite not being romantically linked (and he could tell from the photos Madison was dating some Kyle guy back then), but that was probably his inner Bill Shepherd shining through.

Duncan reached down to his cock, not quite stroking but rather fiddling with it, as to give himself some release or entertainment of a kind, when he did he could feel the precum leaking out of him had damped through his pants, all at the sight of Mallory doing those faces with other woman, suggesting things that maybe weren’t entirely impossible, such as having a fling or two with fellow female classmates. So all he halfheartedly preached also brought to him a borderline perverted sexual fascination that transcended into him lazily jerking his cock while he kept looking at the screen, images passing by. Hypocritical ass.

Yeah, his inner Bill definitely shone through. 

He saw himself reaching jackpot when he came across a different post, apparently Madison Montgomery was a photographer in her free time, and to his good fortune she had a taste for photographing her friends; maybe because it would both stroke the girls’ ego and also spare her the modelling fees someone else would charge. Mallory was one of her projects.

In a field of wild daisies, with her blonde hair undone (he thought it was slightly darker, now, also, like caramel) and a much shorter dress than the ones he had seen her into. She looked like some kind of woodland creature, carefree and braless under the white fabric. 

He undid his pants once again, happy to feel his desire pent up again, tugging the fabric past his hips and increasing the pace of his strokes at the faint outline of what he guessed was one of her nipples. In the next photo her lips were parted and her head thrown back, blissed out.

This time it was him who gasped.

Duncan lied on the bed ten or twenty minutes later after climaxing with a roar, to a mixture of her seemingly innocent photos and the memories of what he had done to her that afternoon. Now he was scrolling through pictures, though this time there were no more Mallory appearances and many of Madison’s posts had been set to private.

Last he saw from her was in a random public post in August 2017. It was a FaceTime screenshot that showed a heavily pregnant Madison smiling at the screen and a more recognizable Mallory staring back with a dimmed down smile. Something about it made it certain that things had changed drastically, that the breach between the girl at the Event Planning Committee and the girl from the video call were two completely different people. 

_ “Best two hours ever xx, I miss this one so fucking much!!” _ the caption read.

He looked back at Mallory’s face again. Now she was wearing the brown hair he had come to know so well, though it was shorter and slightly wavier, like it had just been given a cut. She was wearing a grey knitted sweater and was half sprawled on a couch, partly concealing her smile behind her curled fingers. Bashfulness, hesitation, distance. Long and gone was the hopeful grin that once adorned her face.

After all that time he decided to look for Mallory’s profile through Madison’s, but when he tried to tap on her name he made the unsettling discovery that it wasn’t possible, it appeared as though Mallory’s Facebook account was deleted. Maybe for a long time before he even realized. He could recall Mallory mentioning she didn’t graduate in the same college she started in, which wouldn’t be too important and would explain why she distanced herself from her friends.

But deleting her social media? Refusing to get any others? That was suspicious.

Duncan decided to give sleep a try, and despite having promised himself not to think much about it, the next day he would find himself asking Derek to do some research on Mallory Howell, trying to figure out what was it she was hiding from. Or who. 

  
  
  
  


Wednesday morning arrived with shaky, short steps.

When Mallory pulled up at the detention centre parking lot something kept making her fingertips tingle, an uncomfortable sensation that went up both of her arms, almost like someone’s hands were hovering an inch away from them, not quite touching but invading her space. Everybody’s talking was like whispers in a quiet room, their words were distorted and scattered, impossible for her to make sense out of, that was kind of how she knew something was going very, very bad. It simply felt like nobody really knew what it was, if they even foresaw it. She didn’t want to greet anybody, she didn’t want to stop and talk about anything no matter how menial it seemed; she felt like an utter fool, like she had given importance to something stupid. But had she not? She opened up her wounds in front of Roberta after that stupid meeting, and showed a vulnerability she wouldn’t forgive herself to. 

On Monday she had walked in with her chin held high, today she looked at the floor. 

A well known sadness held her prisoner, the feeling of having given too much and too soon. Always unfruitful, always mistaken, it was one of those days in which she wished she had no voice, days in which she wished not to exist. When she was little she used to call them the “shrinking days”, because all she wished was to become smaller. 

It had started early into her childhood, back when she used to feel she was upsetting her mother by trying to get her attention. Mallory was always interrupting something important: be it a visit, be it a phone call, be it a so-called business meeting that never showed results, or some chores that kept piling up because of her. Sickening as it was, the image of her mother’s disturbed gaze was all she saw sometimes when she closed her eyes, it prompted her to apologize without any need, to walk by the far end of the sidewalk trying not to walk into anybody, just don’t bother. Anyone. Anything. Ever.

_ “Can’t you see I’m busy? Why are you interrupting me to talk that nonsense?” _

Mallory looked back at it, asking herself the same thing. And she didn’t know. 

Talking to Roberta had been a relief of some sort, but she always hated the venting aftermath when people came back to check up on her and she didn’t know if all she had to say were bad things, like the only thing that occupied her mind were negative feelings. She wanted to stop saying she was sorry, but how to begin with? She knew in the flesh how bothersome it was to listen to someone’s problems all day long, even if she didn’t understand them, and being there for those who wouldn’t return the favor; she remembered how Xavier used to patiently listen to her when she went off about her other classmates, when Linda said such, when Abigail didn’t invite her to the party, when Julia was talking shit about her online. He never spoke in an ill manner to her.

Maybe it was that validation what made her stick to him for so long. And still she did him wrong, how was she supposed to forgive herself for that? 

Mother had said that Xavier Plympton had married and changed his last name to something else. He took on his wife’s name, of all people, which made sense since women used to do that all the time and it was kind of sweet of him, though she was perfectly aware Xavier hated his surname with all of his capacity and maybe wanted to get rid of it.

Xavier Thompson. It had a nice ring to it. 

The reason why she kept thinking of him that morning was that her mother had mentioned via text the previous day that she was going to pick up his new book from the local bookshop that afternoon; and there was something about his latest protagonist that caught her eye.

Melanie Underwood. An insecure cheerleader who is being accused of committing murder on the first degree, and whose bad reputation weights her down during the trial. The girl was outwardly sweet, kind of elusive, a true push-over, and once got into trouble for getting the team’s quarterback involved in a drama at her university.

She also used to sleep with a professor. 

There was no way in fucking hell that her mother was mentioning those details, probably while she smoked a pack and read on nervously, if she didn’t happen to think Melanie drew inspiration from Mallory. Whether Xavier knew about her and Professor Langdon she wasn’t sure, but it would be an earned punch in the gut for him to ridicule her after all these years for talking to Montana’s boyfriend and making the latter get the beating of his life. If he held any grudges against her, she would understand, but she didn’t like the idea of getting her mother dragged into it. 

No. Not when she had to deal with so much when Cordelia Goode made it public to the administration of Mallory’s university that she was not only engaging in inappropriate sexual relationships with a professor, but that the professor in question was (at the moment, at least) still married to her. Mallory stopped herself from dwelling into the painful memories any longer, and simply wondered if after all this time her mother still held her mistakes against her.

Why, if Mallory had never thrown her under the bus for her own? 

“Good morning,” she mumbled as soon as her hand came off the staircase railing that led to her floor, there she found Dr. Shapiro and Dr. Hawkins, who looked equally worried “What are you two doing around here so early?”

“We were waiting for you, Mallory.” said the dark haired woman.

Mentally, she reminded herself not to stop in her tracks or looking guilty.

But Mallory, well, she stopped dead on her tracks and looked terribly suspicious. Her blood froze in her veins, with a face deprived of color leaning more towards a green shade, whether or not they said something in the next two seconds she had the certainty she would end up throwing up. If they happened to find out about her incident with Duncan she was done for.

Goodbye job, goodbye rent money, goodbye having the liberty of living away from the toxic environment she grew up in. Goodbye doing at least the slightest good for those around her.

“Is everything alright?” she croaked.

“It’s Vincent Mowry,” said Dr. Hawkins. 

Color came slowly back to her face, but the unpleasant sensation that coursed her body was still not aware she was not in danger, anymore. Should she feel guilty for feeling relieved?

She frowned, “Is everything alright with him?”

“Yes,” said one of her colleagues, “It’s just he had a visit yesterday morning and he says he hasn’t been feeling well. He won’t tell us who it was, or what it is, all he asked for was for his consultation to be pushed forward, he said he needed to talk to you now.” 

Mallory felt her gaze drifting towards her office door, where one of the precinct’s oldest guards stood with a bored expression in his face, like he wanted to be somewhere else, and like he hadn’t gotten a good night of sleep the night before. She swallowed the knot in her throat, nodding. 

“He’s waiting for me, I take it?” Mallory hinted. 

They responded affirmatively at the unison, somehow that was kind of comforting to her. If she was going to tend to someone that day, she was glad it would be Vincent. Duncan wouldn’t have the nerve to try and visit her today now, would he? She chose not to think about it. 

“Okay, I’ll go see what’s going on with him,” she commented, addressing the two figures dressed in robes that now seemed somewhat relieved, partly because none of them wanted to treat Vincent for her. He was too complicated, all it took was a misplaced word to get him to shut completely once again, and none of them were really trying to obtain that.

Not when he was incarcerated for a non-violent crime. 

“Alright, I’ll go tend to him.” 

Somewhere not so far away someone else was waking up.

  
  
  
  
  


“Hey, boss?” 

“What, Derek, and how dare you?”

Duncan was convinced he was acting like a teenage boy, unable to stop yet annoyed with himself. It was perhaps far too fucking early in the morning—he dragged down his notification bar, and yes, too early—when he came knocking on. He had to admit he was kind of an aid, in a way, the night before he had been kind enough to sneak him some time in the showers. Despite the debatable privacy, Duncan wasn’t stupid, whether it was to keep a professional eye on him or not, he could feel him sneaking a look or two his direction; maybe giving a fleeting look at his bare ass, he couldn’t exactly tell. Maybe it was somewhat flattering, but in moments like these he wasn’t all too interested in having someone eager to jump his bones, not when he was still debating whether or not what he was getting himself into was a good idea. Though he knew for sure the girl had to be his, and wouldn’t settle for sloppy seconds, or whoever aside from her.

The fact he interrupted him moments before he indulged in some alone time had to be either an example of how bothersome he could be, or some cruel joke. This was different, he had bodyguards in the past but at they those would at least have the decency to let him jerk off in peace.

“I came to wake you up before I did my rounds, you said you wanted to be ready early.”

His therapy session, of course. It had only been two days since his and Mallory’s little encounter on top of the table, and he had used his week’s day sooner than expect, but some foolish part of him was convinced she would have no problem with him asking for seconds.

Take it as you may. 

It was a little too early for him to wind up at her door, sure, but as far as he knew she wasn’t tending to anything else except for paperwork on Wednesdays and would have no problem with him stopping by that day, matter of fact he convinced himself that the distance he halfheartedly kept for the last two days would be about enough. She wouldn’t be upset anymore.

Fuck, for all he knew maybe she would even be excited.

Duncan sure was, excited enough to spring out of bed and fix his hair in the mirror. He looked down at the tent in his pants and was tempted to offer some extra cash to Derek so he sucked him off. He was a debatably attractive fellow, maybe had the looks of someone who couldn’t watch his teeth as much as he would have liked to but pushes come to shove. 

No, that was unbecoming of him. Only one person was allowed to touch him that way.

Only one, from now on. 

“Do your rounds,” he dragged out, his vexing obvious “I’ll be getting ready in the meantime.”

“Oh, sure you will, boss,” the other man teased from the other side of the door.

The sound of his voice annoyed him enough to feel the throbbing in his pants dissipate, almost in record time, like a top notch killjoy. At least he was being useful for something, he needed a clear head. Especially if he was to sit down and talk to Mallory about what happened, this time like civilized people, hoping maybe she would strip off that stupid fear of hers. 

Derek left him on his own reluctantly, which he thanked. And though Duncan felt himself urging to stop him and ask if he had any news on his latest, to name it, commission, his attention drifted elsewhere. Nowhere in particular, suddenly something wasn’t sitting too well with him.

A quick look over around the room, nothing seemed out of place. Except for the cellphone charger brushing awkwardly between the side of his bed and the beige wall. Maybe that was what was getting into his skin. Duncan noticed also that he left it plugged in, though his phone was underneath his pillow. Muttering quietly to himself, he grabbed it in his hands before closing his apps one by one, the last tab being Madison Montgomery’s old university album, where the vibrant small of a former blonde had brought peace to the last couple of days. 

She looked back him from the screen, cladded in a red sundress and sitting by a dock.

Duncan couldn’t help but feeling she was smiling goodbye at him, somehow. It was okay, he smiled, he was going to see her again soon. 

The walk to her office was silent and peaceful, nobody was looking at him, he wasn’t looking at anybody else. He looked overly confident, something typical in him, sauntering down the hall where he could feel her proximity to the point his mind even produced a memory of her flowery perfume that felt nearly identical to the real thing. He was ecstatic.

Derek knocked on the door with his knuckles twice, expecting.

In those brief moments he felt himself growing slightly grateful of him. He didn’t bitch and moan, left him to his own, got him things he couldn’t get himself before, and was gifted with a particular lack of scrupules that he appreciated as much as he identified with; this man, this fucking man, he would do whatever he asked for as long as he gave him a little roll of bills.

It was easier this way, with no false pretences, just a mutual interest over what they could get out of each other. How many times had he gotten used in the past? Far too many. It was better to be aware of what the other needed from him, be it friends, or employees, or women. 

That way he couldn’t feel so used, or stupid.

He noticed it was taking a little too long for Mallory to get the door, which was out of character, but eventually she came out of the door with a mildly surprised look on her face, switching from Derek to Duncan nervously. And so he stilled, confused, feeling maybe he wasn’t in the best position to smile triumphantly at her just yet. 

“What are you doing here?” she asked, with no preambules. 

“It’s Wednesday.” he answered, shrugging.

Mallory sighed, half hidden behind her partly open door, only coming to open it once she took a deep breath and kept looking his way. Like a child, Duncan dragged himself closer to Derek and raised his cuffed wrists as to ask him to free him, but Derek didn’t comply. Instead he motioned him to stand still, looking directly into Mallory’s office.

“You had your session on Monday, you have to wait until next week. Besides…” she stood aside lightly, and he walked closer to the door to curiously look inside, “...I’m busy.”

He felt his heart sink at the sight that welcomed him.

A man was sitting on a chair, his chair, holding a cup of smoking coffee in his hands and looking back at them timidly. He had a look on his face that was disturbed, demure, completely out of place and surprised by being interrupted. Duncan felt his mind racing when he tried to identify who he was and what the fuck he was doing in there.

It was the man in glasses, the one who spoke to him during the prison coup. 

_ “Hey!” he called out “Hey, you! Glasses!” _

_ The man turned around, somewhat fearful. Duncan had lowered his pace, trying to keep up with him as they ran down the hall. He had very short black hair, curly, a rather full beard and thick rimmed glasses. At last he got his attention, and he was thankful about it. _

__

_ “What happened?” he asked. _

_ The man struggled to talk, run, and breathe at the same time but somehow he coped “No idea! I think there was a fight that got out of hand at the cafeteria and a guard was injured, or something!” he huffed coiling onto himself as a particularly fat inmate came in between them “Once they got him on the ground he got jumped. Some tried to help, some tried to hurt him the more! All I know is it all got out of hand, it’s a mutiny.”  _

It was starting to feel like the world was crashing down on his shoulders.

“Who is this?” Duncan pointed with his chin towards the man, who shrunk in his seat feeling seen, “Who is this?” 

The man raised his hand and opened his mouth as to say something, with a trembling lower lip and a bunch of harsh lines contracting over his chin, “Stay there, Vincent,” Mallory said looking back without paying attention to an increasingly angrier Duncan. 

She couldn’t be serious right now. 

“We always have sessions on Wednesdays, that was the agreement! Are you gonna change my session to treat this piece of shit? I have a day of my own! I have it marked!” he protested, “That was what you and Doctor Christensen agreed on, you can’t just—”

“—It’s an emergency.” she deadpanned, “I’ll be seeing you another day.”

And just like that, without any more ceremony, Mallory closed the door right on his face. The face of the troubled man being the last thing he got to see before he was left with his guard in an empty hallway. The echoing of the harsh slam was still pounding in his head long before he could do anything about it, Derek was looking on nervously. Waiting on a reaction. 

What the fuck was wrong with this dirty, fucking brat? Who the fuck did she think she was? 

He was Duncan Shepherd, for crying out loud! Was she not aware who she was dealing with? Was she not aware of the man he was outside of this joint? It had taken him a couple of moments to process what had just happened, but once he did all he felt was anger. Anger, eating him alive, sizzling in his hands. It was an attractive idea to kick at her door until he caused dents on the metal surface, but he chose against it, he simply let the guard to lead him back down the hallway and towards the stairs, defeated. The ghost of a shout dying inside his throat. 

Mallory held onto herself on the other side of the door, waiting for the sound of the footsteps to die down. Only once they were gone she broke apart from it, turning her attention to Vincent once again. 

His eyes were red with tears unshed, still clutching at his coffee mug like life depended on it. It had been a bad previous day, even a worse present time, the reason why he needed to speak to her so urgently was because his ex-wife had decided to reappear with the sole intention of letting him know that his daughter Julia would be getting married in two weeks, and she would also be moving to Berlin with her husband after the wedding. 

She had no intentions of communicating with her father, and now he had no way to contact her before losing all contact with her altogether. Maybe for the rest of his life.

“I’m so sorry about that,” she whispered in his direction. 

Vincent looked utterly defeated, “It’s okay, Doctor,” he attempted to lighten up the mood by laughing dryly, shrugging his slouched shoulders, “This is a jail anyway, right? You should expect to deal with pieces of shit on the daily. I know the guy. Used to see him on TV before he ended up here; I even saw a news article back when he was born. Now he’s interrupting my therapy session, it’s a small world, isn’t?” he chuckled. 

Mallory shook her head. 

“I won’t be letting him interrupt us like that, again, I promise.” 

“Alright,” he breathed.

Mallory looked down at the photo of her daughter his ex-wife had given him the day before. It was from her engagement party last October. In the photo was her, her husband-to-be and a few close friends. Amongst them she recognized a certain face she never thought of seeing again, a certain well-known writer, the very same whose van she rode from time to time, whose life she nearly ruined.

She bit her tongue to keep herself from telling him that, yeah, it was a small world indeed. 

  
  
  
  


It was easy to tell when an outsider came around these cells.

The inmates got rowdy and insolent, spewing insults at whoever had the balls to walk in, Vincent had gotten used to the insults and slurs they threw at whoever was there, and though he wasn’t too keen of the area, it had been his from the moment he first got locked up. He called it the returns aisle, just because it was filled with old and broken things, and nearly no one liked to walk it down. The worst of the worst, the lowlives, the forgotten ones, those who would most likely die and rot within those walls. He had been a witness of it.

But it wasn’t a parade of verbal aggressions what got his attention, but the lack thereof.

In Airway Heights in was easy to identify those who had money. They usually got to use the showers first, they got the best bits of food, got to watch television and use the library the most; like they were the most civilized; he never understood why he was left there. In another life he had been a man of privilege and wealth, maybe stupidly so, considering how he ended up.

Privileged, regardless. 

Stealing from an already multimillionaire firm had been his mistake, driven by greed, driven by the constant nagging of his family and wife who often compared him to those he worked with. Wondering why his boat wasn’t as big as George’s, why they couldn’t go to Cabos every other weekend, complaining over the size of his house and the cars in his garage. So many voices, he told himself, so many voices and he listened to all the wrong ones. It was senseless, he was hurt beyond recognition, and after breaking his back so badly he turned to the one thing he shouldn’t have done. That was his penitence, here he was purging his sins, unaware of whatever followed.

What would happen when he got out of this place? Who would be waiting for him now his children were gone, now his parents were dead? It was scary to think so. 

Vincent pried quietly from his bed, letting down the  _ National Geographic  _ magazine he was reading for the uptenth time, some of the photographs were worn down and colorless in some spots for how tightly he had held onto them after reading them again and again, even cried on their glossy surfaces. He couldn’t blame himself, it had been a present from his little girl, from one of the only two times her mother had allowed her to come visit him.

_ “I will get you out of here, Daddy.” _

She was long gone now, wasn’t she? He found himself intrigued, leaving behind the sound of her voice, the question of whether or not he would hear it again. Whether or now she still liked big felines, as much as she did when she gave her favorite magazine to him, which for a long time was a piece of comfort hiding inside the frozen eyes of that imposing tiger that looked back at him. Someone was approaching.

But it was not one of the usual guards, or maybe some nurse, it was another inmate.

The Shepherd boy. 

With his brow furrowed he curled a bit on his bed, pressing his back to the wall, and wondering how the fuck this kid had managed to sneak into one of the most dangerous areas of the entire prison. He walked with his usual uppity, uncaring waddle. Looking around him in mild disgust. It was kind of a drastic change from the little man scared shitless during the mutiny.

He looked more like he did in interviews and magazines now. 

“Can I h-help you?” he said quietly, when the man peaked through the bars and let his arms hang loosely into his cell. Vincent switched his gaze to his sleeping cellmate, whose name he didn’t really remember but whose presence was new, “Hello?”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Mowry. How do you do?”

It was so eery to listen to him talking that way, considering he sounded perfectly calm and collected, almost like he was saying hello to an old friend making his way back home after a quiet stroll in the park. All that was missing was the pocket watch and the tip of a hat. 

“I’m okay.” he barked, looking at his arms draping over his knees, folded, and back up at him. This man had absolutely nothing to do here, and he wouldn’t think he was as stupid as to try and hurt him in his own cell, through the bars, while the rest of the inmates looked on. 

From the across the hall he could see the usual bearded man, stealing glances at the pretty much. Maybe they were silently mocking how squeaky clean his shoes were, or how perfectly ironed his uniform looked. Vincent had heard stories of him, how he would bribe to get improvements in his room such as extra pillows and a new mattress, some people claimed her mother would pay for him to smuggle in some recreational drugs, booze, even women. But this was a prison, most of these men were bored to death and envious of whoever seemed to do better. 

“Do you know who I am?” he asked, with a purse-lipped smile.

“You’re the guy that got his shit rocked by the guards in the showers,” he replied earnestly. 

Duncan’s smile faded and the recognition, maybe he was expecting to mention he saw it on Forbes Magazine. 

Vincent took the opportunity to get up from his bed, the form of his cellmate shifting lightly in his sleep. He was an odd guy, hardly ever talked, always looked like he was about to break into tears; not the best kind of cellmate, but yet again not the worst. He was ready to warn him and ask him to call for a guard if the rich kid was to slice his throat open with some stolen box cutter. He peered through the bars, his dark eyes shining behind his specs underneath the faint sunlight that still peeked in from above, mouth parted in expectation, but also suspicion.

“What do you, Shepherd?” 

He smiled, abashed, “I came here to apologize, for what happened earlier today.”

Vincent shrugged, wanting the exchange to be over “Okay. You’re forgiven.”

Turning on his heels he prepared himself to pick up his magazine again and let him know less than subtly that he didn’t want to continue with his conversation, when he turned to the bars expecting him to be gone, Duncan was still peering at him with his arms hanging in. 

“I thought of making up to you, Vincent,” he declared, “For interrupting your session like that.”

“It’s Doctor Howell you should apologize to,” he spat, “She’s a sweet woman, and you were rude to her.”

That she was. He couldn’t quite forget the way her eyes flung open like saucers when he made his scene right outside her office, perhaps he looked like he was about to burst; but in reality Vincent was holding himself back from running to the door and smashing the coffee mug into his motherfucking head. One thing he couldn’t deal with was disrespecting women, so much was his distaste for it he often found himself caving into women’s demands, even when these weren’t healthy. If not ask her ex, to this day she still lamented he didn’t give her all she wanted.

But patronized him for ending up in prison because of it. Go figure.

“I’m sure Mallory will forgive me,” he declared without a hint of hesitation.

It made Vincent’s stomach turn, for some reason it felt wrong to listen to the woman’s first name falling out his lips like he owned it. He didn’t seem worthy of it. Nowhere close to worthy. 

“Get lost, kid, you have nothing to do here.”

With his weary eyes fixed on the same old images, he could barely tell at the distance Duncan was reaching down into his pocket, bringing his hand out back into his cell, dangling it in the air to get his attention. Much to his annoyance he looked back at him, and saw his face before anything else. the smile on his lips was amicable, almost like he was begging him to trust him. 

“I got something I thought you’d appreciate.” 

A cellphone. 

Vincent looked down at it, maybe he hadn’t owned one in a very long time. He most definitely didn’t get to enjoy any of those fancy mobile phones that he saw the guards had, and saw up close on magazines and television. This wasn’t exactly one of the latest models, it rather looked more like those second rate ones that some other inmates used when they got lucky enough to pay for one. But if he was right, and he was going to give him with that phone what he desperately needed, he couldn’t care less if it was an old payphone he was trying to force through the bars or one of those sturdy Nokias he used to own.

His tongue got tangled, his glasses hung loosely from his nose.

“I don’t—”

“—It’s got Julia’s cellphone number in it,” he dangled the object in front of him again, to which Vincent responded bolting up to his feet, and taking it softly in his hands like he were afraid of breaking it, “All you gotta do is call. There is no way the phone call can be traced.” 

“Why are you doing this?” he whispered.

“I already told you,” Duncan tilted his head “I wanted to apologize for my rude behavior this morning. I should have understood Mallory has other patients waiting on her. To look after, to tend to. I saw the way she looked at you, she cares for you a lot.”

Vincent furrowed his brow at his honeyed voice, something in it roused him in a negative way.

“She cares for everyone.”

He smiled, though it was a fine pressed line “Sure she does.” 

With the phone held tightly to his chest, the older man knew it was probably his only chance to speak to his daughter before she permanently left her. He thought of how desperately he needed to listen to her voice, to explain himself once again and let her know her dad never wished for any of this to happen; he ached for it, like a drowning man trying to holding a lifeline and come back to the surface. Maybe this man meant nothing more than to apologize, even if that somehow implied he smuggled the phone in to shut him up, like throwing money at a problem waiting it would go away. 

The gift, however biased, was now to him inexplicably precious.

Vincent looked up to thank him, but the words faded like smoke in his mouth, for the Shepherd boy was no longer to be seen, the sound of his distant footsteps and the familiar guard turning around the corner were all the evidence he had of that exchange even happening. 

The short walk to his bulk was slow and pitiful, his legs were heavy like they were made out of stone. Also, much to his surprise, his cellmate was now sitting on his own with his legs dangling out. 

“Who was that?” he slurred out, scratching his unruly brownish hair.

“Some dude, he…” Vincent lingered, “He gave me a present, I guess?”

The nameless man had his mouth gaped at the sight of the phone, speaking with a tone of voice that he had only seen in Southern California surfers, the kind to smoke pot outside their vans while they smeared wax of their boards. It was like he was stuck in the eighties.

_ “Woah” _

Vincent shook his head in disbelief, “I know. I’m Vincent, Mowry, nice to meet you.”

His companion stretched his hand right out to shake it, mirroring the gesture.

“Nice to meet you, man. I’m Jonah, Jonah Murphy.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me @ myself: please say sike


	13. Breath Stains On Glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to post this, I've been meaning to finish it forever now! I hadn't, before, because the night I began writing this chapter I (yes) got mild carbon monoxide poisoning! I know, fucking surreal, there was this leakage in my home, and, yeah, I didn't sleep a wink waiting for our technician! Thankfully we're all safe. And I'm happy to deliver this today. I'm celebrating, because I outlined this chapter almost a _year_ ago, can you believe? 
> 
> Content warnings, dolls: mind you the tags above, this chapter includes mentions of blood, violence, there is sexual coercion/blackmailing that most definitely falls into the category of dubcon. But, hey! That's why you're here, right? Here you go, my lovelies, actual and factual smut. We did it. We fucking did it.

Much to her dismay,  _ A Night at the Pale Blue Rapids _ by Xavier P. Thompson was a success. 

Three days, was all it took, for the once steady best-seller buzz to become hysteria; everyone wanted a copy of his latest murder mystery book, everyone was praising him for continuing his now acclaimed anthology and everyone had  _ devoured _ the newest material he had put out into the world. According to the news articles, social media was brimming with posts tagged under  _ #ANightWithXavierPT _ in honor of the book, Barnes & Noble had to hire extra security to keep the queues outside the stores organized, and there were even different fandom factions fighting one another over the main eight characters. 

Mallory narrowed her eyes at the screen after putting on her reading glasses, there was a Buzzfeed article, in particular, addressing the newest “fandom wars” that arose from the prompt reading of the book; she felt a pang of jealousy seeing all these people reading and finishing the book in record time, reminding herself she still had her old Agatha Christie copy locked in one of her office drawers, still marked on the fifty-ninth page. 

People hated Melanie Underwood’s guts. 

From the spoilers and excerpt she had read, Melanie was the most obnoxious, victimy, self-pitying character Xavier Thompson had ever written. Not only had she gotten Brian Mayer, her football player boyfriend, into trouble for orchestrating a surprise antidoping test right before his olympic tryouts as a way to get even with him after he supposedly cheated on her with a fellow cheerleader, but she had also compromised a married professor, father of two, with a series of explicit texts. She was a wildfire that killed everything she came in contact with.

Some teenage girls idolized her, though, she was the perfect vision of what they thought a prospect of femme fatale would be. She had the butter blonde hair, the pastel clothes, the pseudo alternative playlist and aloof demeanor that sounded like  _ Jennifer’s Body _ Megan Fox but that probably when put into practice by preteens at school came off more like  _ Radio Rebel _ Debby Ryan. Mallory felt herself coiling.

_ “Do you think it’s about mommy, Daisy Bee?” _ she muttered while playing with her dog’s velveteen fur, body half-perched over her uncomfortable rotating chair, Mallory brought her glass of wine back to her lips while Elton John played on the background “I think it’s about mommy, yeah.”

The article included some screenshots of tweets related to Melanie:

**_LittleNinaColada:_ ** _ i wanna be Melanie underwood when i grow up, she’s the blueprint xx. _   
  


__ **_WarsOfStarsOverlord:_ ** _ Just when you thought the crazy baby fraus couldn’t get any worse, they find yet another one-dimensional female character to mold their personalities after. _

For a side the first “tweeter” or tweet-er, a Twitter user, she didn’t know what to call them, had one of these heavily pastel colored icons of a singer she didn’t quite identify but who most certainly wasn’t the original poster, symbols and emojis on her name; she could tell from the get-go it was the kind of person who had a taste for all things beautiful even when they bordered lack of taste and chabiness—sadly those weren’t really around ten years ago when she was still a teenager and needed someone to idolize and emulate. She had  _ Gossip Girl _ , and  _ The Veronicas _ , although she didn’t think she would be the best fit to either get stalked by a nameless pseudo-reporter or else wear her eyes rimmed with fifty pounds of liner. 

She could tell, however, the second user had to be a devoted spokesperson for the incel agenda who probably spent too long sitting in front of his computer, unshowered, either criticizing women for their choices or searching for pictures of their feet.

Mallory came to the conclusion it wasn’t Melanie’s actions they admired, but the sense of aesthetic embedded into the character and the outer image that she gave to the world. The dangerous mixture between woodland creature and life ruiner. She personally disliked any character that exploited the idea of a young, oversexed woman, she despised the prospect of turning a highly idealized girl into some kind of glamorized “jailbait”, or else. 

Maybe it was the fact she had to endure exploitation and harassment (as most women) from a very young age. Maybe it was the fact it was an ex of hers, who wrote it. 

At the midst of these puritanical times that clash ever so loudly with deviance and overexposure, the entitlement of some people not only to have an opinion but to be right, Xavier P. Thompson had faced some mild backlash due to his way to describe Melanie; scrolling further she found a tweet by Xavier himself, framed by an embedded code into the page that was already saturated with photographs and links, it was a rather tacky post with two screenshots from a notes app, or maybe a Google Document. Anxiety coursed through her, and the seat she sat on suddenly felt hot and prickly.

_ « To those who may concern,  _

_ It has come to my attention that, following the release of my book, numerous readers and critics have made allegations regarding my treatment to the main character, Melanie Underwood. These allegations claim that I, the author, have depicted the eighteen-year-old in a predatory and exploitative fashion due to her behavior and lack of moral compass, also due to her involvement with three older men throughout the book and the quote unquote excessive amount of physical descriptions she was given. That she has been written not only as a villain, but a male fantasy.  _

_ Melanie was never intended to be seen as a heroine or an unreliable narrator, but a representation of multiple emotional turmoils and the misuse of current day America’s politically correct agenda. She is supposed to be insecure, sad, selfish, and narcissistic, and it was exactly her perception of herself and not her actual personality what is described throughout the book, reason why she is only seen through someone else’s point of view (Franklin’s) the moment she is sentenced and incarcerated; when we finally see her for what she is, which is vain, delusional, and ill-intentioned.  _

_ As a writer I have the enormous responsibility of knowing my words and views can have an either positive or negative influence on those readers who are impressionable, but it has never been my intention to brainwash or coerce people into following a mindset, because the mindset itself is not mine but the character’s. I understand being a man can be a reason why my writing can be seen as biased, but in this case it’s nothing but a case of pure fiction. There have been brush strokes here and there, taken from personal experiences and real events, but in no way has been my intention to hurt any of my readers.  _

_ My most sincere apologies to those who might have felt alluded, or misrepresented. _

_ — X. » _

__ “To those who might have felt alluded…” she trailed off. 

Despite having expected, hoped for his so-called apology to make her feel better or give her peace of mind, Mallory felt more seen than ever. Her wine had ran out, leaving at the bottom of the glass only the tiniest bit of residue that somewhat reminded her of blood spilled on porcelain, even if it was just for a second—one which she didn’t see coming, and couldn’t stop—all these memories came rushing in so abruptly she had to hold onto the edge of her desktop to keep herself from slumping into her seat, Daisy sniffed curiously at her hand and the moist coldness of her nose was unsettling against her tremulous skin. The dangling of her collar’s clover-shaped charm was the only sound in her living room, to her it was like shackles dragging on the ground.

It really was not her intention to take it at heart, let alone read more into it, but the more details she found about Melanie the more she felt herself caving into a raw, blood-freezing panic. Maybe it was the wine, the iron deficiency or the overall stressful week crashing down on her, but she was suddenly becoming nauseous. An almost violent reminder brought her to take a big gulp of air and close her eyes shut, her hand coming immediately to cover them. 

By the time Mallory Howell met him, aged fifteen, she went by Mallory Vanderwood. The air she took in came out in a sharp, broken sob, and in an act of sheer impulsivity she grabbed her cellphone and went to speed dial. 

Five tones in, much to her desperation, she was answered  _ “Hello?” _

“Mom,” she cried into the phone.

_ “Honey, what’s wrong?”  _

Mallory took a deep breath, but it came off more like a whistle “Did you read it?”

_ “Read wh—?” _

“Did you read it? The book?” 

_ “I was gonna, I-I haven’t had the time just yet,” _ she stuttered, quickly her tone turned more severe and also aggravated, Mallory could perfectly envision her furrowing  _ “Why?”  _

This time she kept her words in before she collected herself, “Xavier knew my birth name, mom, I hadn’t changed it yet when I met him. The way he wrote this fucking girl, the face and the hair, every fucking thing. I feel like this is some sort of stupid spoof of me, mom. He did this shit on purpose.”

_ “We can file for a defamation suit, Mallie, I know someone wh—” _

“No.” she stopped her, “I’m not going to bring all the mess from back from its grave, you and dad already went through enough because of it. I can’t do it if I know he’s gonna hold what happened with Montana’s boyfriend against me, that’ll only sink me further.”

_ “And we’re supposed to take this!? Like it doesn’t even matter!?” _

“He’s a fucking dickhead,” she sniffed while she wiped her nose, her voice tone reminiscent to the teenage girl who once cried on her mother’s lap after being broken up with, “That only shows he’s not over shit that happened over a decade ago, even with a wife and two fucking kids.” 

_ “Well, you did get him beat up, you know that.” _

__ Mallory shouted in a whisper, “Mom!” 

Evelyn tsked her tongue from the other side of the line,  _ “There’s a God above that looks below, sweetheart. You know it. If this man, this punk, thought of using you as some way to exaggerate the things you did and sell more books that’s on him! He’ll get his as much as you got yours!” _

“This motherfuc—”

_ “Don’t cuss, honey.” _

“—this  _ asshat _ has no right—” she corrected “—of using what I did as a teenager against me after everything he knows I went through, afterwards, and I won’t give him the fucking pleasure of knowing he’s hurt me.”

_ “Don’t,” _ her mother sighed,  _ “Alright, baby. You’re right. Let’s no give him the pleasure.”  _

“Don’t tell dad about it.”

_ “Okay.” _

“Or your neighbors. Or your friends. Or anyone else.”

_ “Okay.”  _

__ Mallory wanted to tell herself she believed her words and that her distressed tone would be about enough for her mother to understand how delicate things were, however it was very likely her pleas were falling into deaf ears. Water in a strainer. There was something about her mother, where she couldn’t pick one good friendship—not one, but somehow it was always Mallory who had friends to be wary of, friends she would criticize as soon as they left her home with her food still warm inside their bellies; Coco was an old hag who wanted to feel better about herself by hanging out with younger ladies, instead of taking care of her own son. Madison was a deviant slut with a drug-addict boyfriend who was far too skinny to be healthy. Zoe, well, she didn’t have anything to hold against Zoe so she would just invent about as much as her mind allowed her to.

No matter how utterly, clearly,  _ fucking  _ outlandish. 

Back to her own friendships, though, there was nothing much to look up to. Cheaters, has-beens, wretches coiling in deep self-hatred and nauseating eau de parfum. It was the most pathetic depiction of  _ The Meninas _ , if  _ The Meninas _ were actually painted at a bingo hall. 

Ladies of the Pontiac crew, Tupperware enthusiasts, crispy haired and yellow-toothed. Always talking trash of those around them, as their years gone by while they looked on in a flabbergasted state. What was it, then? Didn’t your plans turn out to be what you wanted them to be? Is it easier, now you’re older, to judge those whose life circumstances are completely different from yours? One of the things that scared Mallory the most was to think of herself ending up that way, planning to use on a free trip with hag one, two, and three. Talking shit about the passersby while she forced her stiff calves into outfashioned leg warmers. 

Stomping on their glass-skinned daughters, patronizing them for getting broken under their weight.

“And would you,” she hiccuped, wiping her nose soundly with the back of her hand, “Would you please not mention this to dad? Please?” 

_ “Not a word,” _ was swore, but conviction was wearing light in words that were so heavy,  _ “I wouldn’t like him to go through everything he’s gone through, again. You know how much it hurt him to know what happened with Michael.” _

It was a sacrilegious mention, she had to give her that. So many guidelines to stay into, and Evelyn hopped over all of them, others she tore open with a stride like a gold medalist rushing through a finish line. Mallory held onto the bridge of her nose, feeling a shiver run down her forearm through the light blue fabric of her sweater, it was easy to even imagine her in all her glory with her arms raised up and an unsettling smile on her face. 

Kind of like the one she used to make when the neighbors complimented her casserole, kind of like the one she would shoot at her grandmother whenever she tried to play nice. Kind of the one she gave to strangers after it was discovered that her silly young daughter was fucking a local attorney’s husband. Time had turned it into a maddened grimace, and Mallory couldn’t bring herself to look. 

The young woman scoffed, pacing back and forth across her small living room. 

“I know he liked Michael much more than he was supposed to, and I know you wanted to hate him for it even after all it happened—but it was easier to put the blame on me. I was the harlot, after all.” 

_ “Mallory, I don’t _ — _ ”  _

She began, but a series of beeps coming through the phone interrupted her, there was somebody else waiting in line. “I understand you wanted to turn this conversation into some kind of lecture on how Mallory has a poor taste in men, but I don’t have the—”

Again, the beeping. Mallory turned to look at the time displayed on her computer screen. It was half past midnight, already, it was odd for anyone to be calling. 

“—Wait a second, mom, someone’s on the line. Hold up.” 

She tapped the button and switched calls, somewhat uncertain. It was Roberta’s number.

“Hey, it’s late,” the tone of her voice soft. 

_ “Mallory, hi…” _ Roberta’s voice was breathy, and nervous,  _ “...I’m sorry if I woke you up.” _

“Not at all, I was… I was with my mother on the phone, I wasn’t sleeping.” 

_ “Are you okay? You sound like you’ve been crying.”  _

Frustrating, it was frustrating. Usually it was easier to pretend in front of the uninterested, but it was hard doing so in front of a woman who could smell emotional distress from a hundred miles away; Roberta’s discerning nature had been useful for many things. Squeezing their way out of staff meetings that were running long, confirming her suspicions on Daniel and Brenda, predicting the ending of television shows they watched together whenever they could. But not when Mallory was, in all her shame, attempting to disguise how painful and unbearable it was to her to deal with her family. 

“It’s nothing,” she sniffled, “Just me being me, I guess.”

In her voice she could sense the heaviness, it was like ice that had frozen over her tongue and that caused her words to hurt not from their nature but from the effort. 

She heard Roberta sighing into the phone, giving herself time.

_ “Look, Mal, I’m afraid something bad happened.” _

Mallory frowned, getting ahold of herself “What is it?”

_ “I can’t tell you, not over the phone, director’s orders.” _

“Is everyone alright?”

_ “I’m in a patrol on my way to your apartment, now.”  _ she dodged.

What could be so serious it couldn’t be said over the phone? What was so urgent Roberta had to tell her in the flesh rather than from afar or the next morning? Mallory began to look frantically around in the absurd fear her house was untidy, if what Roberta was to tell her was urgent she thought it minded little if her living spaces were messy—matter of fact, it wouldn’t matter at all. But if she had been taught something was there was a great vulnerability in showing someone your dishes and laundry, for deliberate disorganization and unintentional carelessness were more proper of artistic prospects, there was no such a thing as charm within the chaos of a scholar. Not poor ones, that is. 

“You’re coming to tell me in person?” she pondered.

_ “I’m coming to pick you up, are you dressed?” _

Hardly. Well, not hardly. She was wearing light-colored jeans, vans, and a thin blue sweater. She could just throw a coat over it, but compared to the results of the two hours she took to make herself presentable every morning she was noticeably underdressed.

“I am.” she muttered, angry at herself. 

_ “I’ll be there in ten minutes.” _

The line went dead.

* * *

  
  
  


When she attended high school there was a time where she would take three weekly afternoons to help the staff clean and organize the school for the following day’s activities. Most of the volunteers were burnouts who liked to take the time to sneak into the stadium and smoke, some others liked to mess around the empty facilities, and some others just needed the extra credit.

She fit in none of the categories listed above. Mallory liked the silence of the music room when she polished the wooden chairs, and be able to hum songs to herself using the acoustic of the room to project her voice without necessarily having to be loud. The lack of effort made her feel like Christina Aguilera, falsettos often disrupted by her own laughter. 

It was so ridiculous.

But if well she did enjoy the hours putting everything into place, like an oversized dollhouse, she hated having to cross the courtyard to return the cleaning supplies. It was properly lit, and the spaces she had been familiar with since she was a child as one of her nannies took her with her to her cheerleading practices, it was the fact she was not  _ supposed _ to see that place so late into the day what unsettled her.

At that very moment she was experiencing the same feeling.

Mallory had only had to stay overtime at Airway Heights two or three times, and she had hated all of them, imagine the disturbance of having to do it not due to meetings or paperwork but an emergency. When she was first hired, despite her desperation to get the job (read: any job), she had been pretty adamant with her schedule. From nine to five. She could arrive earlier, but never leave later than five. God forbid she bid the sun adieu from her office, there was something about to correction centre that made it unspeakable staying a second after dusk. 

The ride to Airway Heights had been ridden by unspoken tension, Roberta kept eyeing her digital watch like a madwoman, refusing to reply to Mallory's comments with more than negative or affirmative little hums, they were superfluous all things considered, for she had remained true to her statement over the phone—she was not going to mention anything until they were at the site. Their driver was a police officer she was only mildly acquainted with, from her understanding the man, Officer Matthews, was part of the patrols that escorted the transportation buses and helped with the transfers from one precinct to the other. Shrinking her nose, Mallory became hyper aware of her surroundings and tried to touch as little of the police car as she could.

God, she hated cops so badly.

The entrance pathway was a phantom that glowed hesitantly in a sickening shade of greenish yellow, at those late hours without the buzz of the crowds and frantic cleaning from the staff the place looked older and unconvincingly clean. The kind of clean that lies on white surfaces swept over with dirty water and bleach. 

Deceiving to the eye, sticky to the touch.

“You haven't told me why I'm here.”

“We had another situation with the inmates.”

_ Another _ , she held onto the thought. Immediately her skin got covered on goosebumps, the wind outside had been cold and unforgiving, not even the chilly morning air could be up to pair with the airs of early winter. Things had started to die down, and the silence brought her no comfort.

If the attempted mutiny had unleashed in Airway Heights all sorts of deafening noises, why was it all so silent now? 

“Well, my dear Bertie, I’m no fortune teller, I can't just assume what's happened from such vague statement.”

Roberta, whose otherwise unwavering demeanor was cracking with green eyes that appeared fearful despite her clenched jaw, shot her a fleeting look and didn't bring herself to relent her walking.

She took a deep breath “For four months now, the gymnasium schedule has been split into sectors. Each floor has a handful of inmates from their cells taken down to exercise depending on their level of security and their behaviour.”

» A particular group of inmates had been misbehaving for quite some time now and got their hours pushed back. And back. And back again until they all acted properly. Apparently they had been so rowdy, to call it something, they were allowed to go down just a couple hours ago. Around ten in the evening—I know, absurd—and everything had gone well. For most of the time. 

_ (Together they turned the corner, and they took a thin set of stairs that led to a section of the correctional she had never visited before, the semi outer gymnasium. Most of it was fenced, even the ceiling was made out of crisscrossing bars, and a small section faced towards one of the yards. It was lined with non-electric machines and workout bars, she had understood.) _

» Something happened. It was a rather large group of people, some were actually given coffee while they sat on the benches and saw the others working out. Smoking cigarettes, exchanging magazines, reading their mail, et cetera. Someone caused a small brawl that made the inmates move about nervously, the guards prompted them out before it escalated. 

But without their knowledge, it already had.

As the last inmates rushed out, one of the guards noticed someone was lying on the floor, unmoving. That's when he decided to go back into the gym and see why they stayed behind. Perhaps the cold had gotten the best of’em… 

Roberta held onto Mallory's left wrist making her stop in her tracks, Mallory did so, concerned by the look on her face completely ignoring the one on her own. The gesture alone was enough to confirm to her that something was very, very wrong.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“It was Vincent.”

Vincent? Mowry? Not possible. What happened to him? For the second time that night Mallory fell prisoner to panic, unable to move. Was he dead? Was he killed in that gym, is that why Roberta had picked her up? Fearing she would have a meltdown over the phone?

She broke apart rather abruptly, only a few meters away from the metallic gym entrance. Suddenly the dreadful mental picture came into her brain, her dearest Vincent, covered in a white sheet. Or worse, bare and wide eyed out in the cold. 

“What the fuck happened to him? What did they do?” her breath was hitching, her squeaky voice overcome by a high-pitch screech. “What did they do to him? What did they do? Tell me!”

Roberta looked at her, both hurt and pitifully. The gesture made Mallory go berserk, turning desperately at whoever was close to her. Her screeches turned into eardrum-piercing screams.

_ “TELL ME! WHAT DID THEY DO? WHAT DID THEY DO TO VINCENT? TELL ME! FUCKING TE—,” _ a guard tried to brace her from behind, prompting her to elbow him and throw punches into the air as hot angry tears ran down her face,  _ “—GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF ME! ROBERTA! ROBERTA WHAT HAPPENED TO VINCENT? PLEASE TELL ME HE'S ALRIGHT!” _

Her screams melted into broken sobs, her voice hoarse and defeated.

_ “Please tell me he's alright, please tell me, tell me he's alright. Oh my God. Vincent…” _ she cried,  _ “Vincent, no, oh my God…” _

Roberta only came closer once it was clear she wouldn't throw a punch at her face, though Mallory was still trying to break loose from the guard's grip. Clearly, she was hysterical, the smallest portion of her self-aware brain kept telling her she was reacting this way due to the build up of the previous two months.

“Shh, shh,” she cooed her placing her hands on each side of her face, Mallory continued to cry “Please be quiet. Shh. Be quiet. He's at the hospital, he's at the hospital, not here. He's alive.” 

Mallory didn't begin to feel any better, if anything that discovery worsened her nervous state. Now she was hyperventilating, loudly, so much so she had finally caught the attention of those examining the scene inside the gymnasium, curious faces peeked outside the door, pestering the already easily vexed man who was now approaching.

It seemed to be Tudd Fuller only made an act of appearance when something went terribly, terribly wrong. With his blueish gray suit and graying hair, he had to be a man in his mid-sixties. Undisturbed, unaffected, completely rational as his job required. 

However no amount of aplomb could avoid how disturbed he became upon listening to Mallory having a textbook meltdown, he hushed his workers harshly, more interested in the lady near him who so seemed to be, quite simply, hysterical. Roberta braced herself for the chastising they were sure to receive, but again, none came.

“Heaven's sake, what is it that's happening to her? She's gonna wake the whole centre with that shouting!” 

The sight of Roberta calmed him down, for some reason she had that effect on him, in particular. Of course, the centered, knowing man, fixing himself to the needs of a crazy lady throwing a fit, or so showing himself to them in the shape of a knight in shining armor. 

Like Dr. Christensen, Mr. Fuller had a weakness for women. All the same, of an entirely differently nature from one another's. Roberta announced her appearance like an emotionless TV host, holding onto the poor girl who kept melting in her clumsy embrace.

“Doctor Howell, Director.”

He gave her a critical look-over “What's left of her.”

“I picked her up just like you asked,” she told him, “But I'm afraid she was having a rough night, personal matters, this only ended up flipping her over.”

“I'm sorry I have to be such an inconvenience to a woman in this state, I'm beyond ashamed of putting her through all this turmoil when she's clearly in this condition. But I will have to ask her to put on a brave face.”

To Mallory it all came from underwater, her hair had gotten sweaty in the tug of war, and now stuck to her forehead and nose, the nearness of it and Roberta's coat were almost suffocating.

“Come on, babe. It’s what Vincent needs from you right now.”

So, naturally, they were here not to give her answers but to ask her questions. Like a gentleman, Mr. Fuller tugged Mallory softly out from her embrace, guiding her forward as he made her hook both her hands around his elbow; his steps were slow, steady, not wanting to rush her.

At some point, his hand brushed hers and he shivered loudly.

“Goodness, I’d never felt a girl so cold! Poor thing must be catatonic,” Roberta followed closely, bracing herself to catch her if it was necessary, “Again I’m sorry I have to put you through this, Dr. Howell, we’re outraged and in need of answers as much as you are.”

She heard him complaining to another man she didn’t care to recognize or acknowledge much about not trusting the guards that had been assigned watching over the inmates that were at the gymnasium. The cold weather, the late hours, the hostility from both sides, it had all been a recipe for negligence; the truth was none of the guards had paid special attention to what was going on. 

“What happened to Vincent Mowry? Why is he at the hospital?”

Mr. Fuller beckoned her forward with a motion of his hand.

On the cement floor of the freezing cold gymnasium were at least two dozens of dirty footprints that suggested struggle, the inmates sniveling like angry serpents had left them there, they almost looked like tire marks. 

Nearing one of the benches was, unmistakably, a pool of blood. 

Someone, or should she say some people, had stepped over it. If there was something she never wished seeing (after the pool of blood she had seen at the cafeteria) was the spilled blood of someone she held dear, smudged over by the stomps of other men. Men she didn’t care for at all. Men that might as well be the responsibles for the harm inflicted on him.

Her throat shut close, as did her air supply. Mallory began shaking her head no, mortified, fearing the image in her head would stick there forever. Both Roberta and the director rubbed her shoulders, there was something very powerful about seeing a frail little woman bawling her eyes out; she had never used it, not for her benefit, but her response to it not only would make a remark on her ethics and her level of commitment with her patients. It would almost sanctify her.

Mallory Howell, the whore from Stockbridge, Massachusetts, had to flee for fucking her married professor. A saint. She couldn’t believe herself.

“We called you in because we have no solid leads on who did this,” Todd’s voice was soft, “Vincent, he… He was stabbed twice in the chest shortly ago, and had to be transferred to the Memorial Hospital on a chopper as an emergency. Nobody has come forth about this, yet, we’re not exactly sure how to proceed with the questioning. ”

He continued, “But you were her therapist, and you had seen him just this morning. There must be something you could share with us to get to the bottom of this situation.”

With that, her sore eyes widened, a switch was flicked.

And she knew, she knew with the same certainty Vincent had done absolutely nothing to deserve this, what had caused this. The quarrel from earlier that day, the fear in Vincent’s eyes. Her own. Her weeping turned to heavy breathing, as sheer anger overtook her. Now it was it what shook her to the core, and she felt a skin that once had been so cold, suddenly set ablaze. 

Roberta shot her a quizzical look.

“What is it?”

Yet she couldn’t string the words together. They waited on her for a few good seconds, losing their patience yet trying, so carefully, to communicate with her without triggering another violent response. 

“Shepherd. It was Duncan Shepherd, he did this to Vincent.”

Every bit of color in Todd Fuller’s face escaped him, giving him an almost sick and green look that stuck, his expression startled like someone had just slapped him across the face “I beg your pardon?”

“This morning, when Vincent Mowry was in my office, Duncan Shepherd arrived for his weekly therapy session. He was not happy Vincent was there, at all, and even tried to get me to throw him out so I could tend to him; I refused, I know that if there’s someone who would be holding a grudge against Vincent, is him.” 

“Dr. Howell, that’s a pretty serious accusation. Vincent was stabbed two different times, missing his heart by inches. I don’t think Mr. Shepherd would be capable of doing something as violent as that.”

Her gaze shifted to the drying blood, and there it stayed.

“You know nothing about what he’s capable of.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


Mallory had spent a good two hours giving her declaration.

Despite the icy breeze, she felt on fire. Every second of it. She knew him to be wicked, she knew him to be low, but she never took him for a killer; a Shepherd? Bothering to stain his hands with blood? Mallory would have said two months ago that it was ridiculous, but she had seen that rage in his eyes, felt his jealousy. She was smarter than to think principles and appearances meant much to him, anymore, if he was coming he could come for the kill minding little what or who got in his way. 

When she had been dropped off at her apartment, she was granted with the sick days she hadn’t claimed during all of her time in Airway Heights, it was a total of eight days, she was free to stay home counting on her pay at the end of the month of November, and she would return on the first week of December, only having to work about two weeks before winter break. 

Maybe, just maybe, it would be a good idea to take on her mother’s offer.

Rage, like wine, was aging finely inside her even during isolation. With every afternoon nap, every meal she shared with Tamara and Nicholas, every short little call she would share with Roberta on daily basis sharing information on Vincent’s recovery, it refused to simmer down.

Her bluntness had come in handy. After two days of playing coy and providing with no answers, they had no more remedy than to put Duncan Shepherd in solitary confinement. The idea was attractive, the image almost satisfying.

Despite how rash the decision seemed, there was a certain—what to call it—predisposition towards Duncan at the precinct. He was arrogant and berating, like any of his kind, his christening had been but a treat. Mallory was hoping they manhandled him, that they bruised his pretty little face and maybe knocked one or two teeth out his mouth in the process. He had been seen by others being carried to Mallory’s office, there were witnesses affirming they heard him throwing a tantrum over his therapy session and, what was even more damning, he had also been supposedly seen at the gymnasium right before Vincent’s group chimed in. 

In a phone conversation she and the head of security had agreed, that the staff probably might have missed Duncan staying behind due to neglect and not having a desire to check further into the gymnasium for any stray prisoners after their time was over. There’s little knowledge as to where he was when Vincent was found, the whole ordeal prompted an administrative investigation, and it would be by no means easy for any of those involved.

Julia Mowry had abruptly called off her wedding plans because of it. 

She was fully prepared to sue the correction centre over what had happened to her father. Mallory was hoping she would. But in order accelerate the process, Mallory would have to go back, and interview the main suspect herself. 

Which leads it to the current frame. 

Those hallways got longer every time she walked them down. The glow of the lightbulbs, it was different, somewhat warmer and higher quality, as the walls were mostly metallic and the place reeked of fear and a better disinfectant. The high-level security wing of the centre wasn’t entirely unpleasant, she would have killed to have her office there, instead of her floor, yet again she would also be forcing herself to cohabit with the worst kinds of criminals in that prison. 

She muttered her thanks, smoothing down the blouse she was wearing with dress pants that day. Not like she was walking out in the cold wearing a skirt or a dress, and sat anxiously on a small seat that faced a see-through pane of glass. A visitation room she had thought, no, after being corrected she came to learn it was actually made for safe interrogations. 

Duncan came through the door, better said he was thrown, and both their doors in front of both their guards were shut at unison, most likely a shared mechanism. They were left on their own, separated, but with in company. 

In all honesty, he looked like shit. Tired, his uniform wrinkled and probably unwashed. Mallory couldn’t tell when was the last time he ate or drank some water, judging by the pasty look of his skin and his chapped lips. The rings around his eyes were almost agate purple. Yet he smiled, when he saw her, as who reconnects with an old friend. 

Mallory reached forward for the black auricular, while Duncan took his sweet time to pull at bit at his pants and sit comfortably on his own seat, he didn’t look exactly prim and proper, he looked disheveled. 

Eventually, he got ahold of his own,  _ “Fancy seeing you here.” _

“You’re a fucking piece of shit, I hope you know that.” she spat, not taking any time for pleasantries, “A fucking piece of shit.”

_ “What for, exactly?” _

“You stabbed him! You stabbed Vincent for what happened in my office that morning!” she whispered, knowing shouts would alarm her guard. 

He shook his head with a painfully perplexed and faux innocent look on his face  _ “I’ve already told every single one of you that I had nothing to do with it!”  _ Mallory shot him a deathly glare, he looked towards the ceiling as who forces himself to remember and began to list people out  _ “I told that to the head of security, to the officers they sent to get me while I was sleeping, to the other two who punched me in the ribs until I nearly vomited, and to the nurse that for some reason tended to the wounds by tapping some alcohol on my side and calling it a day.” _

“You deserved every last bit of it.” 

He shook his finger no patronizingly at her.

_ “That’s what you would like to think. That’s what you would like to think ‘cuz is the easiest answer. Putting the blame on the most predictable suspect. Like I needed any of that shit, to begin with, I must remind you I’m trying to get out of here early, not do overtime.”  _

__ “Nobody else had a reason to hurt him, Duncan. Nobody.”

He smiled, _ “Nobody but the inmate you’re fucking, right?”  _

Mallory’s face burned in shame, “You know as well as I do that is nowhere near close to what happened. You know as well as I do that me rejecting you that day is the reason why you tried to hurt him.”

_ “Like I was that self-pitying and insecure!” _ he scoffed.

“After all the shit I’ve heard of you straight from your mouth, I know that wouldn’t be too far off from the things you’ve already done. Should I remind you why you’re here?” she cocked an eyebrow, taunting him. 

Duncan narrowed his eyes at her with pure disgust  _ “Fuck. You. Mallory.”  _

“I’m gonna make sure you spend every remaining day of your fucking sentence here alone, in a fucking cell, I’m gonna make sure you pay for what we both know you’ve done!”

Far from recoiling or holding back, Duncan leaned forward towards the glass and spoke quietly, but with an edge of menace in his voice that cut like a dull blade. His eyes were haggard and almost crazed, shining like twin crystal balls over the print of his breath staining the glass.

“And how was I supposed to do it, to begin with? Your friends here haven’t been able to even place me at the site! I took the night off, I didn’t go down to gymnasium with the rest, I spent the entire night alone in my cell!”

Mallory stayed in silence, doubting herself just for a minute. If Duncan was watched over and he assured everyone that he hadn’t been anywhere near Vincent that evening (despite being the only one with a motive) what was left for her? For Vincent, and whoever was responsible? 

“You were the only person who had something against him. He hasn’t gotten until trouble once before, and now he’s hospitalized. His entire family is by the side of his bed hoping and praying the injuries don’t kill him.”

His eyes blew wide like saucers.

_ “Oh, so his family didn’t forget about him, after all!” _

Mallory narrowed hers, “How do you know anything about his family?”

He shrugged,  _ “Inmates talk. They share stories. He fits this place about as well as I do and that says a lot. He’s respected amongst the inmates, at this point he has a certain reputation to him, I would brag about it if I owned it!” _

“You insist on not being involved?”

_ “They’ve fed me once a day for almost a week, they’ve made me sleep on the floor. I think that if I was really the culprit I would have said something to them already.” _

Mallory slumped back into her seat, trying not to look excessively defeated. Duncan only looked at her attentively, not like she were judging him from where she was, rather like he was a kind in some kind of zoo, looking at a sad feral animal trapped inside a glassy cage. 

Equal parts of fascination and pity. 

_ “I might have heard something before I was thrown here…” _ he hinted.

“What did you hear? And how?”

He shrugged again, _ “I already told you, inmates talk. I’m willing to share some information with you if you, and only if, you accept my conditions.” _

There was this sly, worrisome grin on his face. The kind that didn’t reach the eyes, a slightly crooked row of teeth partly blurred out by the saturation of his own breathing; Mallory knew better than to trust it.

She frowned, “What conditions would those be, exactly?”

Duncan dwelled into his thoughts for just a moment, pouting lightly and crossing one arm over his chest having the satyre drawn with ink press against the pale fabric of his uniform, than he smiled, so close to the glass now he was an inch away from pressing his nose against it.

_ “Why don’t you…”  _ he trailed off,  _ “open that flimsy blouse of yours and let me see?”  _

Mallory shook her head no, “I’m not gonna do that.”

_ “Why not? Is not like anybody else is here with us.” _

It wasn’t lust, or regret, what Mallory felt when he voiced it. It was self-consciousness. She was fully aware she was rather challenged in terms of womanly attributes such as curves, which were everywhere nowadays, her tits were rounded and small; they had never truly been a part of herself she liked. They made her feel so… underdeveloped. 

“It’s wrong. And I don’t want to.”

_ “Then I guess we’ll never know what happened to your Vincent and I’ll have to go back to sleeping on the floor. I don’t care.”  _

“Are you sure you  _ really _ know something about this, Duncan?” she insisted.

He shrugged,  _ “Aren’t we supposed to be here to find out?” _

“And are you going to tell me?” Mallory asked him, running her tongue quickly over her dry bottom lip, “If I show you”

Even the mention of it seemed to bring great pleasure to him. Duncan broke a little apart from the glass, straightening his back and folding his forearms over his thighs. He nodded.

_ “You show me what I want, and I’m going to tell you everything I know.” _

Fighting the urge to cry, Mallory whispered a shaky “okay” and reached down to the hem of her shirt clumsily. Took her a quarter second to realize she wasn’t even meant to reach for it from that end, she refused to look up, she refused to give him the pleasure of seeing the rage and shame in her eyes.

_ “Leave it open until I say so,” _ he told her. 

Mallory thought of taking her jacket off, but it was loose enough so it didn’t get in her way, her nibble fingers reached the pearly buttons that kept her blouse together, and began to undo them not too quickly, not too slow. Meanwhile Duncan had stretched back into his chair, seemingly in content and expectation. 

This humiliation was his payback for what she had done. She had tried to crush his spirit after making him believe he was going to get something, and he had paid in kind. She threw him into that cold cell, no food no water but once day, probably no light. It was a miracle he hadn’t gone insane, if what he was doing now wasn’t enough of a display of derangement. 

She was Melanie Underwood, stripping for her boyfriend’s brother at a house party all over again. She was Mallory Vanderwood, degrading herself for a man far wealthier than her for the second time in her life.

Mallory stopped when she reached the crisp waistband of her trousers, and mustered up the strengths to look up at his eyes before she started parting her shirt open for him; his eyes were hungry, despite what they had done in her office, Duncan had never seen her naked, this had to be a win for him. 

She had put on a lilac brassiere underneath her dark blue blouse that morning, she could feel the approval almost oozing from him when she caught him tugging slightly at his lower lip with his teeth from the inside. Would that be enough? She wondered. Apparently it wasn’t. 

_ “Tug that down too.” _

_ “If you don’t cooperate, Mallory,” _ he warned her sweetly,  _ “I’m gonna have to ask you to take it off completely. And if you refuse to do that, I’m not going to tell you anything.” _

Angrily, she yanked down the cups of lace, nearly tearing the seams, feeling the cold air in the room coming from the ventilation system hitting her bare nipples. It was so chilly and moist she could have sworn someone had slowly ran their tongue flat over her skin, she had to bit back a gasp, it was so intense to disrobe herself that way with someone looking on.

Duncan’s hand rested on his knee, slowly it began to slide upwards until it stopped at the top of his thigh. Mallory was sitting right in front of him, broken apart just by a piece of glass, with her chest bare for him to look at. She was about to hyperventilate. 

“Push them together.”

She did so.

“Pinch your nipples, both of them, I wanna see them get hard.”

They were already hard. Fear and cold had already taken care of that. Mallory hissed slightly when her own fingers tugged harshly at the hardened pink peaks, which were already pushed up by the bra below them, the pressure of her upper arms pressed to her sides as she played with her breasts made them push together evenly; looking eager and plush despite their small size. 

Fuck, fuck that felt good. Under the table her legs begin to open almost against her will, but the seam of her pants continued to strain her insistently making the sudden throb in her pussy worsen; she rarely ever consciously felt herself getting wet. Mallory could feel an amount of moisture suddenly at her tight little entrance. 

“W-What are you doing?” she stammered.

_ “I never said you could stop,”  _ he cooed, seeing her hands had stopped.

Duncan, he couldn’t be serious, could he? What if someone walked in and found them like this? The man was outstretched imposingly on his seat as his right hand popped his front button open, fear was shooting through her veins but still Mallory continued to play with her nipples. To pinch them was borderline painful now, so she began to gently brush the edge of her nails against them. Slowly, very slowly, perhaps as slowly as he would if he were teasing her. 

God, forgive her. She was genuinely starting to enjoy this. She was getting really fucking wet. The slick had began to trickle down her slit, her asshole now moist as well, Mallory had to bite her lower lip to keep herself from howling at the idea of a finger teasing there, poking slowly at the ring of muscle as she continued to tug, stroke, wet her fingers with her tongue and continuing to torture her over sensitive skin. 

“Fuck…” she cursed quietly. The man had reached down for the zipper, only mildly loud sound in the room, and before she could process it he tugged down as his trousers and boxers with them, prompting a long, flushed, leaking cock to spring out.

_ “I want you to…”  _ he swallowed thick  _ “I want you to ask me to fuck your tits.” _

“Fuck my tits, Duncan” she begged with a small, shaky voice.

_ “Tell me you want me to cum all over them.” _

“Cum all over my fucking tits. Please. Ahhh.” 

Duncan began to thrust up into his circled first, using his left hand to steady himself, before she could stop herself from it. All her lust. All her hatred. All her pent up tension. Mallory opened her own buttons and yanked down her zipper, rolling her eyes back when she came in contact with her positively soaked slit. He cursed under his breath at the show, and they picked up an identical pace, Duncan stroking his hand up and down his shaft, Mallory rubbing tight circles on her clit. Both of them grinding up their hips like they were trying to mimic each other’s movements. 

_ “Faster,” _ he asked her. She obeyed, rushing the movements on her abused little pearl, entirely sure she was staining her trousers crotch by now. 

Mallory looked at him, her chest heaving and her eyes glazed. His cock was glistening like someone had coated it in spit, she could only imagine how loud they were be if it was him fucking her and not his hand. He was big, thick, she had put things that size inside her before, she could take him. 

_ “Fuck, fuck I’m gonna cum,” _ he wailed, Mallory was not far off, but he stopped himself at once and took a few seconds to breathe, _ “Stop. Stop I want to see you. Show me your pussy, show me your pussy, babe, put your feet on the table. That’s right, yes, tug your pants down. Mallory, fuck.” _

She had both her feet flat on the small table their shared, she also noticed how he took the time to almost examine her nail polish, maybe read the scripture on the side of her foot. 

_ Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, Proverbs 31:30. _

From that angle with her pants almost tugged down to her knees he could see the slick folds of her pussy needy and puckered up, she parted her thighs slightly allowing herself to spread them open for him letting her entrance come into his direct line of vision, also perfectly letting him see how it narrowed close with a sharp throbbing that nearly caused her to tear up.

_ “You’re so fucking beautiful. I’m gonna fuck that pussy so hard, baby, I’m gonna cum so hard inside of you when I get the fuck out of here. Fuck, I wanna eat you out so fucking bad, look how fucking wet you are.” _

She wailed, playing with the hood of her clit trapping it between two of her fingers tugging it back, like she were a man playing his own cock and tugging down his foreskin,  _ “I want you to put your fingers in.” _

Mallory shook her head no, nervously.

“I’m. I can’t. I’m gonna make a mess.”

_ “Mallory put your fucking fingers in your pussy.” _

He praised her in a rushed disarray of  _ “that’s my good girl, that’s right”  _ when she thrusted two of her digits violently into her needy, little hole, they were swallowed up to her third knuckle with no effort, arching her back when she curled them up and felt the swollen rough tissue already heavy with fluid. She was gonna burst. 

At this point he was leaning over his own table, jerking his cock so fast the room was filled with wet noises of skin slapping skin. She could see he was close from the way his eyebrows knitted together, and his mouth fell open in a silent scream, “Please,” she begged “Please, I’m gonna cum. I can’t keep going. Please I don’t wanna cum. Please, I don’t wanna cum I’m gonna make a mess.”

He growled under his breath, seeing how Mallory began to bounce on her own fingers, her toes curled, and her self control all went out the windom when the rope in her lower belly snapped, her body convulsing as her orgasm took her over, and three splurts of clear liquid burst out of her, the girl cried of pleasure and embarrassment when she bit on her hand, trying not to scream.

Duncan’s hands were covered in semen, his own sounds of pleasure muffled in fear they were get caught. 

Mallory was too humiliated and used to bring herself to speak for a few moments. Moments Duncan took to silently clean up his hands on a handkerchief he retrieved from his back pocket, and placed his flaccid cock back inside his boxers before zipping himself back up.

Her chair was shiny with a spurt of slick, almost like she had wet herself.

She was mortified. 

“You need to tell me if you didn’t do this,” she spoke, quietly, only once she was decent herself, Duncan’s expression was for the first time in days, peaceful and serene.

_ “I’ve already told you I didn’t”  _ he echoed.

“Then you must tell me what you know.”

Duncan shook his head, chuckling  _ “I’m afraid I don’t know much more than you do.”  _

“Excuse me?”

_ “You heard me. Nothing I heard was useful. I thought I knew something,”  _ he lied, innocently, almost like a young boy  _ “But I’m afraid I don’t. Sorry for wasting your time, Doctor Howell.” _

“You can’t. You can’t be serious, Duncan, we had a deal.”

He shrugged,  _ “And now I’m forced to tell you my information is not as useful as I thought it to be. I know about as much as you.”  _

Mallory slammed the auricular back against the glass, not causing one crack, not one dent. And saw it bounce before she knocked hard on the door three times.

_ Knock twice if he helps. Knock thrice if he doesn’t,  _ she was told. 

By the time the door opened for her, Duncan was starting to be carried away with a teasing grin on his face. To defile and to degrade. So he tried and so he did.

She was only two meters away from Ezequiel and Mr. Fuller(who were expecting her with worried eyes) when she rushed to the nearest trash can in sight, and violently emptied her stomach in it.

* * *

  
  


Tamara Thatcher was watering the plants on her windowsill that evening when Mallory arrived at the apartment complex. She, indeed, saw her, but was much too polite to say hello considering she looked like death and her eyes were red from the tears shed. 

Both women glanced around, on accident when the chime of her phone brought her back to reality. Beaten and bruised in the most metaphysical level possible when she fumbled through her bag in the cold December air just steps away from the building door.

“Hello?”

_ “It’s Daniel,” _ said her supervisor, who for some reason had taken to act friendlier and less formal around her since her meltdown the week prior.

“Daniel,” she parroted, unsure of what to even said, “I figure you heard what happened. Daniel, I promised to take care of Vincent that day, I’m so sorry, I can’t get him to cooperate I’m—”

He interrupted her,  _ “Listen, Mallory. Listen. We got the guy.” _

“What?”

_ “We got the guy, today an inmate came forward. Or was rather, well, ratted out. Someone had been stealing personal effects for about two or three weeks, we found something that belonged to Vincent in the batch of stolen things. We have blood, a suspect, and a motive.” _

Mallory felt numb, unresponsive, “Who was it?”

She felt him hesitate in telling her,  _ “It… It was Jonah Murphy, Mallory.” _

Realization threw her hard, against the bottom of the well.

“That means—”

_ “Yeah—” _

“Duncan didn’t do it.” 


End file.
